“At last a sailor!” he mutters to himself; for Harry is the only one who has yet offered. “And a good one too,” thinks Captain Lantanas, bending his eyes on the ex-man-o’-war’s man, and scanning him from head to foot.
But, besides personal inspection, he has other assurance of the good qualities of the man before him; at a late hour on the night before he held a communication with Don Gregorio, who has recommended him. The haciendado had reported what Crozier said, that Harry Blew was an able seaman, thoroughly trustworthy, and competent to take charge of a ship, either as first or second officer.
With Crozier’s endorsement thus vicariously conveyed, the ex-man-o’-war’s man has no need to say a word for himself. Nor does Captain Lantanas call for it. He only puts some professional questions, less inquisitorially than as a matter of form.
“The Señor Silvestre advises me that you wish to serve in my ship. Can you take a lunar?”
“Well, capten; I hev squinted through a quadrant afores now, an’ can take a sight; tho’ I arn’t much up to loonars. But if there’s a good chronometer aboard, I won’t let a ship run very far out of her reck’nin’.”
“You can keep a log-book, I suppose?”
“I dare say I can. I’ve larned to write, so ’st might be read; though my fist ain’t much to be bragged about.”
“That will do,” rejoins the skipper, contentedly. “Now, Señor Enrique—I see that’s your name—answer me in all candour. Do you think you are capable of acting as piloto?”
“By that you mean mate, I take it?”
“Yes; it is piloto in Spanish.”