"What has broken now, Flix?" demanded the captain.
"Nothing; but the question is settled," replied the lookoutman, stopping at the front window of the pilot-house, as though he had something important to say. "The ship looks like a punctuation mark on the sea, and"—
"Is it a full stop?" asked Captain Scott.
"I don't know; but I think not. She is so far off that I can't make out whether she is moving or not; but she is not sending as much smoke out of her funnel as she was."
"Then your news is a little indefinite."
"As indefinite as a broken barometer. But I did not come down to report upon the ship alone," added the lookoutman.
"Give out the text, and go on with the sermon."
"The text is in the back part of Jonah, where Job swallowed the whale. The Fatty has come about and is now under a full head of steam, as nearly as I can judge," said Felix, who thought he was treated with too much levity over a serious subject. "I couldn't see her compass, but the arrow-head is directly under the mark, according to my figuring of it."
"Don't be too nautical, Flix; but I suppose you mean that she is headed directly for the Maud," replied the captain. "That is precisely what I have been satisfied from the beginning she would do."
"Then Morris may enter on his log-slate that the chase began at 11.15 a.m.," said Louis as he glanced at the clock over the binnacle.