CHAPTER XXX
THE MAUD INCLINED TO TURN SOMERSETS
Among other nautical furniture, Captain Ringgold had put an old-fashioned log-line, chip, reel, and second glass on board of the Maud. Captain Scott had been unable to use it during the mid watch for the want of some one to assist him. After he had changed the course he gave the wheel to Felix, and with the assistance of Morris, Louis, and Don, had heaved the log. It gave him very nearly ten knots an hour; but he was not confident that his work had been accurate.
Felipe kept account of the number of revolutions a minute; and he insisted that the Maud was making her ten knots an hour, and the current might make it a trifle more than that. The captain had timed the steamer by distances on the chart, and he was satisfied that the log was substantially correct.
"It is now half-past nine, and we have made ninety-five miles from Gib," said he, after he had taken the wheel again. "It would have been thirty-five miles to Alboran if we had kept on our former course; it is less than that now, say about thirty-two. At about eleven o'clock it will be time to be on the lookout for the lighthouse."
At ten Felix took his trick at the wheel, and the captain was the lookout man. Morris and Louis lay down in the cabin and went to sleep. There was nothing to occupy their attention. The weather was pleasant, the sky exceedingly blue, and the sea was quite smooth. Scott had seated himself on the forecastle, and everything on board was as quiet as midnight in a church. He had a spy-glass within his reach, and he occasionally looked through it in the direction in which the steamer was headed.
"What time is it, Flix?" he called to the wheelman, after he had taken an observation with the glass.
"Half-past eleven, Captain," replied Felix.
"Alboran in sight through the glass," added Scott.
"How far off is it? Are we in any danger of running over the island, and knocking the lighthouse into flinders?" asked the Milesian.
"No danger yet, for it is at least twelve miles distant," replied the captain. "It gives me great satisfaction to know that my calculations were correct."
"Well it might; you do that sort of thing as well as the captain of the Guardian-Mother," added Felix.
Scott watched the lighthouse till the helmsman struck eight bells, which was noon. Then he went aft and called the port watch.
"Where are we now, Captain?" asked Louis, rubbing his eyes.
"Alboran light in sight, and about seven miles distant," replied Scott, as he hastened forward again, for he had seen a felucca ahead, and he wished to speak to her.
When he reached the forecastle, he shouted through the scuttle for Don, who came on deck immediately. It was time to relieve Felipe at the engine; but the captain ordered all hands, and the Spaniard was requested to remain at his post. Pitts was busy in the galley getting dinner. The felucca in sight was a large one, and evidently belonged to the island. She was standing out from the lighthouse, and as soon as the Maud was near enough to her, the captain ordered Morris to stop her, for he had just relieved Felix.
"Now, Don, hail her," said Scott to the engineer.
"Felucca, ahoy!" said he in Spanish.
The hail was returned in the same language, and the craft came up into the wind.
"Is there any water on that island?" asked Don at the dictation of the captain.
"Plenty of it," returned the skipper of the felucca.
"We are short of water, and want a cask or two," continued the engineer.
"I can sell you two casks," returned the speaker from the felucca.
"He is on the make," added Scott, when Don had translated the sentence; and he could not help laughing at the business turn of the Spaniard.
"Is it fresh?" asked the captain; and Don put the question to the skipper.
"He says he filled the casks from the well this morning," said Don, rendering the reply into English. "But he may be lying about it," suggested the engineer, smiling. "I have known some Spaniards to be guilty of falsehood; and I think you had better try the water before you buy it."
"Tell him we will go alongside his felucca," added the captain, as he directed Morris to ring one bell.
The Maud went ahead slowly, and in a few minutes she was alongside the felucca. Felipe came out of his room when he had stopped the engine, and began a talk with one of the Spaniards.
"Ask the price of the water, Don," said the captain, when the skipper presented himself abreast of the forecastle; and the engineer put the question.
"Veinte pesos le tonel," (Twenty dollars a barrel).
"Veinte pesos le tonel!" exclaimed Louis.
"No!" shouted the skipper, with no little indignation in his tone and manner. "Veinte pesetas le tonel(Twentypesetasa barrel).
"Twentypesetas! That is a horse of another color," added Louis. "Didn't he saypesos, Don?"
"I understood him so, sir; but perhaps it was a slip of the tongue," replied the engineer. "I don't think he meant that, for twentypesetasis a very high price for water."
"How much is apeseta?" asked Scott.
"Twenty cents," replied Louis.
"Four dollars a barrel! That is a steep price," added the captain.
"Let Don ascertain if the water is good," suggested Louis.
The engineer went on board the felucca, and the skipper filled a tin dipper from one of four barrels lashed to the side of the craft. Then he tried one on the other side. Returning to the deck of the Maud, he reported the water to be fresh and pure.
"But the price?" said the captain, turning to Louis.
"Those are fifty-gallon barrels," interposed Don. "They contain enough to fill your four casks, sir."
"Never mind the price, Captain Scott. It would cost us more than eight dollars to make a landing on that island, fill the casks, and get them on board again, for we could take only one at a time in our little tender," argued Louis.
"You and Morris pay the bills, and I have not a word to say," replied Captain Scott, laughing and shrugging his shoulders, as though he did not regard himself as the victim of the swindle, though he saw the force of Louis's reasoning.
But then another question came up when it was found that the skipper did not include the price of the casks in that for the water, and he wanted two dollars apiece for the barrels. Scott was in favor of emptying them into the four half-barrels; but there was nothing like a tunnel in either vessel, and the four dollars additional was paid rather than use up any more time.
"Six dollars a barrel for water!" exclaimed Don. "Why, you could buy wine at that price over on the main land."
"I prefer the water to the wine," replied Louis. "Besides, these poor fellows on the island don't often have a chance to make a dollar; and when they do have one, they use it to the best advantage."
The skipper then offered to sell some fresh fish, just out of the water. Louis gave him four Spanishpesetas; and for it he put fish enough on the deck of the Maud to feed the whole ship's company for three days. He was evidently feeling very good after the unexpected trade he had made, and perhaps had more money in his pocket than for six months before; and he was profuse in his compliments and his thanks.
The Maud cast off her fasts, and Morris rang one bell, which was speedily followed by the jingling of the speed bell. The captain dropped his broad shelf in the pilot-house till it became a table on which he spread out his chart. Applying his parallel rule, he took off the course from Alboran light to his point ten miles off Algiers.
"East a half south, Morris," said he when he had obtained the course.
"East a half south, sir," repeated the helmsman, after the manner it was done on board the Blanche and the Guardian-Mother. "While you were dickering for water, Captain Scott, I noticed a change, a drop, in the barometer. Did you observe it?"
"No; but I noticed that the wind was backing," replied Scott, rushing to the barometer, which was suspended by the side of the starboard door. "That felucca is going west, and she has the wind on her port beam.
"What do you mean by backing, Captain?" asked Louis, who was standing at the door of the pilot-house.
"When a west wind shifts against the sun, or works round towards the east through the south-west and south, sailors call it backing," replied the captain, who was as fond as the average young fellow of telling what he knew.
"I have heard old farmers talk about the wind backing round, and I knew that it was towards the south when it did this thing; but I did not know that the sun had anything to do with it," added Louis.
"The sun moves from east to west, as it must if it rises in the east. From east to south would bewiththe sun; but from west to south and to east would beagainstthe sun," continued the captain.
"That's so," added Morris; "and there is a couplet about it:—
'When the wind shifts against the sun,Trust it not, for back it will run.'"
'When the wind shifts against the sun,Trust it not, for back it will run.'"
'When the wind shifts against the sun,Trust it not, for back it will run.'"
'When the wind shifts against the sun,
Trust it not, for back it will run.'"
"The barometer has dropped, and I see that the felucca has all the breeze she can take care of," said Scott, as he looked at the Spanish craft. "The wind is backing to the southward; and before night we shall know what sort of a sea-boat the Maud is."
"Dinner is all ready, Captain Scott," Pitts announced at the port door.
"That means the captain and Flix," added Scott, "for they are off watch just now. Here, Pitts, we must have the meal hours fixed a little differently. It is half-past twelve now, and the watch ought to dine before they come on duty."
"That would make the dinner hour come at half-past eleven, sir," replied the steward, "and the other meals at very odd times, sir."
"No matter for the oddity. Hereafter, breakfast at half-past seven, dinner at half-past eleven, and supper at half-past five," said Captain Scott. "Then either watch will have half an hour for a meal before it goes on duty, and the one relieved can have all the time they want. If we find that half an hour is too much time, we can put the time ahead ten minutes."
"The hours you have named are those used in the navy and on board the Guardian-Mother for the ship's company," added Louis.
Roast beef with a few vegetables and a pudding was the dinner, and it was highly approved by both watches. The meal was hardly finished by the port watch before all hands became thoroughly conscious of a change in the mood of the Mediterranean Sea, for the little steamer had begun to roll as though she intended to make a complete somerset. With her course about east and the wind south, she spent more than half of her time in the trough of the sea, which is a very uncomfortable place to be in, especially in a small steamer like the Maud.
It would not be called a very heavy sea, and it was the direction of the wind rather than the quantity of it which made it uncomfortable on board. The water slopped in over the bulwarks, and Captain Scott, like a prudent shipmaster, made a survey of the deck, taking with him Felix and Don. The scuttles over the run and forecastle were secured in their places, and everything put in order for a gale.