“We will let the first watch have their sleep out,” said Desmond. “It is a pity to rouse them up until daylight, though you, Pat, can lie down.”
“Shure, it’s only my tongue that’s been kept hard at work, and that will get along very well without any rest, so with your leave I’ll sit up and keep Jerry company,” answered the Irishman.
Scarcely an hour after this, Desmond, who fancied he was awake, was sitting near the tiller, with his hand placed mechanically on it, when he felt it suddenly move. There was a rushing sound, the boat heeled slowly over. Tom, who even in his sleep felt the movement, jumped up, and finding the boat heeling over, “Let go the main-sheet,” he shouted to Pat, who, being in the land of dreams, had neglected to lower away on the main halyards. Once aroused, he quickly obeyed the order, and the boat happily righted. Fortunately, the stores being well stowed, nothing shifted, or it might have gone hard with them. Tom’s first act was to look at the compass. The wind, as he had expected, was from the north-west. Desmond was keeping the boat close on the starboard tack, heading away to the southward of west.
“I was afraid so,” exclaimed Tom. “However, we will try what we can do. Perhaps it will shift again to its old quarter; but if it holds as it now does, we shall have a dead beat to Yokohama, and it may be many a long day before we get there. We will give it a fair trial, however, in case the wind should change.”
Daylight soon came. Tom gazed anxiously around.
“We will heave to and go to breakfast. Should the wind continue as it is for a couple of hours, we will then bear up at once and run for Guam. It is a sign to us that that must be our destination.”
Having boiled their kettle, they took their first breakfast on board the boat.
“Follow my example, and make a good one,” said Billy. “If it comes on to blow, and we should have to heave any of our cargo overboard, it is as well to save as much as possible.”
The men, at all events, were inclined to follow the midshipman’s advice; and after breakfast Tom got out his chart and pricked off their course and present position.
“With this wind we shall soon sight the Bonins, so that we shall not have lost much time. We shall, I hope, make Bailey Islands before dark; after that our course must be south by east, which will carry us clear of several rocks and reefs to the westward, and I hope that if we have a good breeze we may sight one of the more northern of the Ladrones in the course of a week or ten days, and Guam is about three hundred miles further south.”