"I move you, Mr. Commander, that Mr. Louis Belgrave be invited to prepare and deliver the lecture," interposed Morris; and the motion was put and carried.
"I have no objection; and my own curiosity would have prompted me to do so without any invitation; but I thank you for the honor you confer on me in the selection," replied Louis; and the company adjourned to the forecastle.
"Well, Don, have you seen anything of the Moorish craft?" asked the captain.
"Not a sign, sir," replied the engineer. "If she is looking for the Maud, I don't believe she will find her in here very soon."
"I don't believe this is just the place to hold a consultation on a delicate subject," said Louis, as he pointed to the scuttle which had been removed from its place by Felipe. "I think we shall do better on the hurricane deck."
As this afforded a better place to observe the surroundings, and especially the approaches from the sea, the captain assented to it, and the "Big Four" repaired to the upper deck. They seated themselves in the little tender of the Maud, and all of them looked out in the direction of the cape, from beyond which the pirate was expected to put in an appearance.
"Our present situation is the subject before the house," the captain began. "We have made the bay for which I shaped the course of the Maud as soon as the gale began to make things sloppy. This is a mountainous island, with nothing like a harbor on the west coast between Cape Gata and Cape Arnauti. There are from twelve to twenty fathoms of water in this bay, within a mile of the shore; and the rocks close aboard of us reach out a mile and a half, with from ten to twelve feet of water on them. There is no town within ten miles of the shore, and we are not likely to see any natives, unless some of them come to this bay to fish. That's where we are."
"We should like to have you tell us now where the Fatty is," added Morris.
"Or the Guardian-Mother," said Louis.
"I am sorry to say that I can't tell you where either of these vessels is; and I am as anxious to know as any of you can be," replied Scott, as he took a paper from his pocket. "I have followed the orders of Captain Ringgold, just as he wrote them down: 'Proceed to Cape Gata; but if it should blow heavily from the southward, go to the north side of the island, and get in behind Cape Arnauti.' And here we are."