“This is jolly!” observed Tom. “I like a calm, there’s so little to do; and it’s fair that the sails should have a holiday now and then. They must get tired of sending us along, month after month, as they have to do.”
“I do not think they get much rest, after all, even now,” said Ben. “Listen how they are flapping against the masts! If they had to do much of that sort of thing, they would soon wear themselves out. What a loud noise they make!”
“Oh yes; but that is only now and then, you see, just to show us that they have not gone to sleep as the wind has done, and are ready for use when we want them,” remarked Tom, who had always a ready answer for any observation made by Ben; too ready sometimes, for he thus turned aside many a piece of good advice which his friend gave him. “At all events, the ship can’t be getting into any mischief while she is floating all alone out here, away from the land,” he added. “If I was the captain, I would turn in and go to sleep till the wind begins to blow again.”
Tom did not know how little sleep the captain of a large ship, with the lives of some hundred men confided to him, ventures to take.
Captain Bertram was on deck, walking with Mr Charlton. He stopped, and earnestly looked towards the north-east His keen eye had detected a peculiar colour in the water extending across the horizon in that direction. He pointed it out to Mr Charlton. “What does it seem to you like!” he asked.
“A coral reef, sir. If so, we have been drifting towards it; I should otherwise have seen it in the morning,” answered the first lieutenant. “I will, however, go aloft, and make sure what it is.”
In spite of the intense heat, Mr Charlton climbed up to the masthead. He carefully scanned the horizon in every direction, and then speedily returned on deck.
“We are nearer to the reef than I had supposed, sir,” he said. “We may keep the boats ahead, and somewhat hinder the ship driving so rapidly towards it; but it is evident that a strong current sets in that direction. Had it been at night, we should have struck before we could have seen it.”
“Pipe the hands on deck, then, Mr Charlton,” answered the captain calmly. “If towing is to serve us, there is no time to be lost.”
Mr Martin was sent for, and his shrill whistle soon brought the whole of the crew tumbling up from below, the landsmen and idlers only remaining to stow away the mess things.