Promptly at the hour set, the two steamers and the two schooners got under way, and stood out of the Bay of Funchal. The wind was quite fresh from the west, veering a little to the north, so that the sailing-vessels had all the breeze they wanted. It had been agreed that the vessels of the fleet should keep together, and the steamers were worked at about two-thirds of their ordinary speed to accommodate them. The course was true south till seven o’clock in the morning, when the Salvages, a group of islands with very rocky and dangerous surroundings, bore to the eastward; and then the fleet was headed to the east south-east. The islands looked barren and forbidding.
“Land, sharp on the weather-bow!” shouted the lookout on the top-gallant forecastle of the Tritonia.
“Land!” exclaimed Scott, who had the deck. “There is no land within a hundred miles in that direction. The lookout has a gravel-stone in his eye, and thinks it is an island.”
“Don’t be too sure of that, Scott,” added the vice-principal, leaping on the rail at the weather side, and looking out in the direction indicated by the lookout. “I see it.”
The lieutenant sprang into the weather rigging, and strained his eyes to the utmost; but he could see nothing that looked like land.
“I think I am getting blind, sir,” added Scott, with a laugh.
“Where are you looking? Up here!” and Mr. Pelham pointed a considerable distance above the horizon.
“Up there! I shouldn’t think of looking up there for land, unless I expected to find it in the moon,” replied Scott. “The Mountains of the Moon are away over on the other side of Africa. Are you looking for them?”
“Don’t you see that mountain?” continued Mr. Pelham, pointing again.
“I see it now,” answered Scott, as he made out a mazy mass, high above the horizon. “What in the world is that?”