"From twelve to twenty miles in twenty-four hours, the Directory says. I call it a knot an hour, and the ebb-tide the same," replied the captain. "This is not accurate, I know, but it is near enough for our present purpose."
"Well, what is the result when you have stirred the whole thing together?" asked Louis.
"We made the ten miles on the plan in fifty minutes. That is two-tenths of a knot a minute, which gives us just twelve knots an hour," answered the captain. "I had an idea that we were doing something of that sort."
"It seems incredible, for when we made our long voyage in the Maud, we timed her at nine knots an hour; and I went over the figures with the chart before me, when I got back to the Guardian-Mother."
"Sure, we were saving the coal thin, for we hadn't the layst bit of an oidea where we'd git any more," Felix interposed.
"Doce nudos la hora!" (Twelve knots an hour!) shouted Louis, when he saw Felipe come out of the engine-room.
"I am very happy," replied the engineer. "I know she could steamer that. She do it off Mogadore."
"She could steam that, not steamer," corrected Louis.
"I find something wrong which I don't see till to-day," added Felipe, who did not care much about his grammar and dictionary in his present delight.
"But where are we now, Captain Scott?" asked Louis, looking about him.