CHAPTER X.
FOR ONE NIGHT AT THE AZORES.
In heading for the Antilles there were several routes which they could take.
It was possible to make a bee line almost due south-west, stopping at the Azores on the way; or they could follow the plan adopted by Spain in sending her ships of war across, heading almost due south to the Canary islands, then on nearly the same course until the Cape Verdes were reached, after which a run to the west would bring them to the Porto Rico coast.
Roderic was much interested in this matter and held many consultations with the old captain as to what line he had marked out.
Perhaps—for somehow our purely selfish personal ends will crop up despite us—he was speculating as to what chances they had of overtaking the blockade runner, should they have decided upon the same course.
There are always so many possibilities governing these things.
Though the ocean appears limitless, there are times when people come together in a most remarkable manner.
Fate takes a hand in many a game and this seemingly boundless sea becomes as a veritable mill pond, where boys float their rafts and have collisions.
Roderic learned that their course was to be laid by way of the Azores, those sentinels of the vasty deep that lie far out in midocean between the two warring countries, the United States and Spain.
He spent a portion of the first morning afloat in examining the vessel from keel to truck so to speak, and was loud in his praise of her stanch abilities.