“I thought you had maybe changed your mind. And Callao won’t be easy to make. Neither Yawl nor me has ever been there; we don’t know the bearings, and we have no compass, and I don’t know much about the stars in these latitudes.”
“But I do, and better still, I have a compass.”
“A compass! Do you hear that, Bill Yawl? Mr. Fortescue has got a compass. Go to Callao! Why, we can go a’most anywhere. Where have you got it, sir—in the cabin?”
“Yes, Abbé Balthazar and I made it, ever so long since. It is only rudely fashioned, and has never been adjusted, but I dare say it will answer the purpose as well as another.”
“Of course it will, and if you’ll kindly bring it here, it’ll be a great help. I reckon if I keep her head about—”
“Nor’ by west.”
“Ay, ay, sir, that’s it, I have no doubt. If I keep her head nor’ by west, I dare say we shall fetch Callao as soon as you was a-saying just now. But Bill and me should have the compass before us when we’re steering; and to-morrow we’ll try to rig up a bit of a binnacle. You, perhaps, would not mind fetching it now, sir?—Bring that patent lantern of yours, Bill.”
I fetched the compass and Yawl the lantern, made of a glass bottle and a piece of copper sheeting (like the rest of our equipments, the spoil of the sea).
Kidd was quite delighted with the compass, the card of which was properly marked and framed in a block of wood, and said it could easily be suspended on gimbals and fixed on a binnacle.
After a while, Angela, who felt tired, went below, and I with her, but only to fetch my cobija and a pillow, for, as I told Kidd, I intended to remain on deck all night, the cabin being too close and stuffy for two persons. This was true, yet not the whole truth. I had another reason; I saw that nothing would be easier than for Kidd or Yawl to slip on the cabin-hatch while I was below, and so have us at their mercy, for Ramon, though a stalwart youth enough, could not contend with the two sailors single-handed.