Overdue | Page 8

being 'tween-deck passengers seemed nothing short of
a grotesque incongruity.
When I went below again, at eight bells, to inspect the emigrants'
quarters, I found them sweet, clean, and altogether very much more
wholesome than they had been upon the occasion of my first visit, and I
expressed my gratification at the change, hinting pretty strongly that I
should expect the place to be maintained in that condition for the
remainder of the voyage; at which remark one of the occupants--a pale,
delicate-looking girl--exclaimed:
"Oh, sir, I only hope that you will insist upon that! Some of the people
here--especially the men--are shockingly lazy, and would never do a
hand's turn of work if they were not made to."
"I am much obliged to you for the hint," said I. "I will find out the
identity of those especially lazy ones, and see if I cannot imbue them
with a good wholesome hatred of idleness before we arrive in the land,
where those who won't work must starve."

By sunset that night the Salamis had slid so far ahead of us that only
the heads of her courses were visible above the horizon; and with
nightfall we saw the last of her that we were destined to see during that
voyage.
I suppose it was only natural that I, a lad of barely seventeen years of
age, should be full of business, and importance, and anxiety, for a few
hours at least, upon finding myself thus unexpectedly placed in a
position of such tremendous responsibility as was involved in the
navigation, and therefore, to a large extent, the safety of this fine,
wholesome old ship with her two hundred passengers, her crew of
thirty, and her valuable cargo. At all events, that was the condition of
mind in which I found myself as I paced the spacious poop, hour after
hour, sometimes accompanied by Polson, sometimes conversing with
Tudsbery, and occasionally alone. As I walked, my glances travelled,
with the regularity of clockwork, first to windward, then ahead, then
aloft, and finally--as I reached the binnacle--into the compass bowl;
then away out to windward again, and so on, ad infinitum, until I was
fairly bone- weary, and had completely walked off all my anxiety--to
say nothing of my importance--and had convinced myself that I really
might venture to leave the ship for a few hours to the care of the
boatswain and the carpenter.
I have mentioned that, when bidding me farewell prior to my change
over from the Salamis to the Mercury, Captain Martin was kind enough
to give me a word or two of caution and advice; and one of the bits of
advice which he most forcibly impressed upon me was that I should
make a point of sighting either Saint Paul or Amsterdam island on my
way to the eastward, and thus verify my reckoning. I recognised this as
being a counsel of wisdom, and determined to shape a course that
would enable me to sight both, they being only about fifty miles apart,
and both standing high. I therefore very carefully laid off the compass
course upon the chart, and found it to be south-east by east
three-quarters east, the distance being eight hundred and forty miles;
and this course I gave to the helmsman as soon as I had pricked it off
and very carefully verified it, while he passed it on to his relief, and so
on.

But when I turned out at six bells the next morning I found, to my
disgust, that the wind had drawn round from the eastward and broken
us some four points off our course; while, to add to my vexation, the
boatswain and the carpenter--both of them illiterate men--had entered
up the log slate in such an extraordinary manner that, so far as the dead
reckoning was concerned, the information was not of the slightest use
to me. Fortunately for my peace of mind the atmosphere was clear, and
I was able to get sights during the forenoon which gave me the ship's
longitude; while, a little later on, a meridian altitude of the sun fixed
our latitude for us. Then, for nearly thirty hours, we found ourselves
enveloped in one of the densest fogs I ever experienced, with light,
baffling variable winds that made of our wake a continual zigzag,
winding up with three days of thoroughly foul weather--a whole gale of
wind from the north-east--during the greater part of which we lay hove-
to under close-reefed fore and main topsails, with our head to the
south-east. Then the weather cleared and moderated; the wind
gradually worked round, first to east, and then to south-east; and at
length I found the ship laying up, close-hauled under all plain sail, for
the spot where, according to my reckoning,