“How far are we from anywhere, Bellair?” Fleury asked.
“We weren’t supposed to strike land before Chatham or Bounty Island—two days’ sail this side of New Zealand, as I understand it. We lost land six—a week ago to-day—Madre de Dios, McArliss called it—off the west Coast of South America. With good wind McArliss planned to sight the Islands off New Zealand in three weeks. We had a week’s good sailing until yesterday—so we are a fortnight, as the Jade reckoned, from—your home.”
Bellair turned to the woman. She did not speak.
“Do you suppose we struck coral?” Fleury asked.
The subject seemed very hopeless. “I saw the charts in McArliss’ cabin. No reefs were charted according to our passage. We may have been off our course. But I do not understand. The mate took our bearings yesterday noon. I do not know what he reported to the Captain——”
“It may have been a sunken wreck that we struck,” said Fleury.
Bellair had thought of that. He turned to Stackhouse, who might have had something to say, but the other stared at them balefully—at their faces, not meeting their eyes. Either he had not followed their words, or chose to take no part.
“If we are in the course of any ships at all, it would be of one passing our route, from the Horn to the Islands,” Fleury added. “I doubt if it would do us any good to row. We must not tax our strength. If we are off our course, we cannot tell whether it is to the north or south, so nothing is positively to be gained. It’s a question of hands up. The other boat set out for somewhere at once. If they find ship they will tell the story——”
It appeared a useless recounting of obvious things. Bellair had thought this out bit by bit several times without finding the least substance to tie to. Fleury’s addition merely accentuated the bleakness of their position.
“Still,” the preacher added, “if there is nothing for us to do in the way of struggle—the rest is simplified. We may be thoroughly tested, but I feel a strange confidence of our ultimate delivery. I thought of it before we had parted from the Jade. It came to me again in the night. I believe it now. We do not belong to the deep—not all of us.”