"All right then, we must be on our way in an hour."
"Wot course?" The skipper rose to his feet.
"This is the point we must reach with all speed," said Curlie, drawing the photograph of the mysterious old map from his pocket and pointing to the star near the center. "Compare that with your own chart, locate it as well as you can and then mark out your own course."
The skipper stared at him as though he thought Curlie crazy.
"That! Why that—"
Turning quickly, he disappeared up the hatch, to return presently with a chart. This he placed upon the table, beside the photograph.
After five minutes of close study he turned an astonished face upon the boy.
"That, as I 'ave thought, is five 'undred miles hout to sea. Five 'undred miles in a cockleshell. Man, you're daft."
"All right," said Curlie; "the trip's got to be made. I thought you might be afraid to undertake it; that's why I wanted to know at once. I'll go out and hunt another skipper. There's surely plenty of them idle these dull times."
"Hafraid, did 'e say! Me! Hafraid!" The skipper was purple with rage. "Hafraid 'e says. 'E says it, a bloomin' Yankee kid, an' me as 'as 'ad ships sunk under me twice by the bloody German submarines! Me, Captain Jarvis, hafraid."