"We shall average a run of 300 miles every twenty-four hours, and I'll slip in an extra degree whenever I can. Who's to know?"
"Ne'er a man on this wessel, sir," he answered. "There's not above two as can spell words in a book."
"So I should think. Of course I shall have to prick off the chart according to the wind. A breeze like this may well give us three hundred miles. If it fall calm I can make her drift sixty miles west-sou'-west, and clap on another eighty for steerage way. I shall have double reckonings—one for the crew, one for myself. You, as chief mate, will know it's all right."
"Leave that to me," he answered, with a short laugh. "They've found out by this time that the ship's a clipper, and I'll let 'em understand that there never was a better navigator than you. It 'll be for you and me to keep as much canvas on her as she'll carry in our watches, for the sake of appearance; and if I was you, sir, I'd trim the log-line afresh."
"A good idea," said I. "I'll give her a double dose. Twelve knots shall be nothing in a moderate breeze."
We both laughed at this; and then, to make my presence on deck appear reasonable, I walked to the binnacle.
I returned and said—
"In nine days hence we must contrive to be in longitude 62° and latitude 33°;—somewhere about it. If we can average 180 miles every day we shall do it."
"What do you make the distance from where we are now to the Gulf?"
"In broad numbers, three thousand miles."