"We're forty miles from where we should be," he said as the boys gathered around him, "Sure neither of you boys made a mistake in the course last night?"
"Sure," declared both lads positively.
The four puzzled over the strange situation in silence for several minutes. Then the captain with his knife loosened the screws and removed the compass' face of glass.
"I wonder how that got there," he suddenly exclaimed.
Cunningly placed, so as to draw the magnetic needle West of North was a small bright iron nail.
"It couldn't have got there by itself," Charley declared, excitedly. "It must have been put there by someone while we were all at supper last night."
"I guess there is no doubt as to who that someone was," with an inclination of his head towards Manuel who, standing a little ways off was watching them closely. The Greek, as soon as he saw the attention he was receiving, turned and strolled carelessly forward.
The captain pondered gravely, "I don't see what his object was," he said, at last. "If we held on that course long it would only have carried us further out into the Gulf, so he couldn't have been aiming to get us wrecked."
"He planned to get us separated from the fleet," Charley declared. "Do you think we could find it again, captain?"
The old sailor shook his head. "There's no telling where we are now," he said, gloomily, "we might hunt for days without coming across them. If that fellow did put that nail there to make us lose them, he's succeeded all right."