That night the wind blew, and the next day, and the next, and the next week, and the weeks following. Ever strong and fresh, out of the northeast, came the mighty trade-wind. Nine knots, ten knots, eleven knots—the brig foamed before it, into the southwest, edging eleven knots—the brig foamed before it, into the southwest, edging away always to the westward.
Every sail was spread. Sails were even improvised to supplement the vast press the ship carried, a balloon jib for the bows, and a triangular piece of canvas that the boatswain labored over, and which he spread above the square topsails on the main. He was mightily proud of his handicraft, and walked about, rubbing his huge hands and gazing up at the little sail.
"An inwention o' my own," he proudly confided to Martin. "Swiggle me stiff, if the Flyin' Cloud 'as anything on us, for we've rigged a bloody moons'il, says I."
Day by day the air grew warmer, as they neared the tropics. One day they sighted a school of skimming flying fish; that night several flew on board and were delivered into Charley Bo Yip's ready hands, and Martin feasted for the first time upon that dainty morsel. Bonito and porpoise played about the bows.
Martin could not at first understand how a ship that was bound for a distant corner of the cold Bering Sea came to be sailing into the tropics. But the boatswain enlightened him.
"It's a case o' the longest way being the shortest, lad. The winds, says I. We 'ave to make a 'alf circle to the south, using these trades, to make the Siberian coast this time o' year. We're makin' a good passage—swiggle me, if Carew an' his Dawn 'ave won past, the way we're sailin'! And the old man reckons seventy days, outside, afore 'e makes 'is landfall o' Fire Mountain. Coming 'ome, now, will be different. We'll sail the great circle, the course the mail-boats follow, an' we'll likely make the passage in 'alf the time. We'll run the easting down, up there in the 'igh latitudes with the westerlies be'ind us."
They were bright, sunny days, those trade-wind days, and wonderful nights. The ship practically sailed herself. A slackening and tightening of sheets, night and morning, and a watch-end trimming of yards, was all the labor required of the crew.
So, regular shipboard work, and Martin's education, went forward. "Chips" plied his cunning hand outside his workshop door; "Sails" spread his work upon the deck abaft the house.
A crusty, talkative, kind-hearted fellow was Sails. He was an old Scot, named MacLean; and the native burr in his speech had been softened by many years of roving. He always took particular pains to inform any listener that he was a MacLean, and that the Clan MacLean was beyond doubt the foremost, the oldest, and the best family that favored this wretched, hopeless world with residence. He hinted darkly at a villainous conspiracy that had deprived him of his estates and lairdships in dear old Stornoway, Bonnie Scotland. He was a pessimist of parts, and he furnished the needed shade that made brighter Martin's carefree existence.
MacLean had followed Captain Dabney for six years—most of the crew were even longer in the ship—and before joining the Cohasset, he had, to Martin's intense interest, made a voyage with Wild Bob Carew.