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_ (Twenty _pesetas_ a barrel).
"Twenty _pesetas_! That is a horse of another color," added Louis.
"Didn't he say _pesos_, 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 twenty
_pesetas_ is a very high price for water."
"How much is a _peseta_?" 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 Spanish _pesetas_; 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 be _with_ the sun; but from west to south and
to east would be _against_ the 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.'"
"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.