“How much speed can we get?”
“Well, twelve knots is her registered gait, but I might coax a bit more out of her.”
“Try and get all you can.”
“I will. What time do you think we ought to reach the vicinity of the Sea King?”
“It’s a trifle over a hundred miles to the spot at which she gave her bearings,” was the response, with a glance at the chart which lay exposed in the uncovered case in front of the wheel. “It’s now just one o’clock. Say, about midnight.”
“Phew! You propose to pick up a yacht, whose location you know only vaguely, in the dark?”
“Not so dark, either. There’ll be a moon at ten-thirty. Anyhow, if we keep right on this course we’re bound to come within a few miles of the given bearings.”
“I guess that’s so. Well, I’m off below to watch the engines.”
“Better start the dynamo and get some ‘juice’ into the storage batteries. I mean to try the wireless again before long.”
Tom nodded, and vanished below once more. Jupe came forward from the stern, where he had been coiling lines and generally setting things to rights.