[CHAPTER VI.]
The weather mended next day, and we made all sail with a fine breeze, steering south-south-west. We had left the Downs on Tuesday, the 22nd of August, and on the 25th we found by observation that we had made a distance of over 900 miles, which, considering the heavy seas the ship had encountered and the depth to which she was loaded, was very good sailing.
However, though we carried the strong north-westerly wind with us all day, it fell calm towards night, then shifted ahead, then drew away north, and then fell calm again. We were now well upon the skirts of the Bay of Biscay, and the heavy swell for which that stretch of sea is famous, did not fail us. All through the night we lay like the ship in the song, rolling abominably, with Coxon in a ferocious temper on deck, routing up the hands to man first the port, and then the starboard braces, bousing the yards about to every whiff of wind, like a madman in the Doldrums, until both watches were exhausted. All this work was put upon us, merely because the skipper was in a rage at the calm, and not caring to rest himself, determined that his crew should not; but for all the good this slueing the yards about did, he might as well have laid the mainyards aback, and waited until some wind really came.
Early in the morning a light breeze sprang up aft, and the fore-topmast stun'-sail was run up, and the ship began to move again. This breeze held steady all day, and freshened a bit at night—but being right aft scarcely gave us more than six knots when liveliest. However, it saved the men's arms and legs, and enabled them to go about other and easier work than manning braces, stowing sails, and setting them again.
And so till Wednesday, the 31st of August, on which day we were, to the best of my memory, in latitude 45° and longitude about 10°.
The men during this time had been pretty quiet. The boatswain told me that grumbling among them was as regular as meal-times; but no murmurs came aft, no fresh complaints were made to the skipper. The reason was, I think, the crew believed that the skipper meant to touch at Madeira or one of the more southerly Canary Islands. That this was their notion was put into my head by a question asked me by a hand at the wheel when I was alone on deck: would I tell him where the ship was?
I gave him the results of the sights taken at noon.
"That's to the east'ard of Madeery, ain't it, sir?"
"Yes."
He bent his eyes on the compass-card, and seemed to be reflecting on the ship's course. The subject dropped; but after he had been relieved, and was gone forward, I saw him talking to the rest of the watch: and one of them knelt down and drew some kind of figure with a piece of chalk upon the deck (it looked to me, and doubtless was, a rude chart of the ship's position), whereupon the cook began to jabber with great vehemence, extending his hands in the wildest way, and pulling one of the men close to him, and whispering in his ear. They noticed me watching them, presently, and broke up.