“Fire away,” chuckled Jack, “but don’t shoot it out.”
Old Silas raised the sextant to his eye and aimed it at the sun. Then he gazed at the marked arc of the instrument and made a swift mental calculation.
“How are we getting along?” inquired Jack.
“Wait till I get it worked out, Master Jack,” responded the old salt, “but we’ve been making twenty-five miles an hour for the last forty-eight hours. I only hope this weather lasts.”
“Same here; it’s important we should make a rapid run.”
“Yes; from what I know of those Cubans, they’re a bad lot when they get scrapping. But bless you, if we had the old Ohio along we could blow the whole island into the water if we wanted to.”
“I hope we wouldn’t want to do anything like that,” exclaimed Tom, “it must be a very interesting place to visit.”
“I read up on its history a bit before we left home,” put in Jack.
“Ah, and what do the books say about it?” asked Silas. “They’re mostly wrong, I suppose.”
“I’ll tell you what I remember, if you like,” volunteered Jack.