"What has broken now, Flix?" demanded the captain.
"Nothing; but the question is settled," replied the lookoutman, stopping at the front window of the pilot-house, as though he had something important to say. "The ship looks like a punctuation mark on the sea, and"--
"Is it a full stop?" asked Captain Scott.
"I don't know; but I think not. She is so far off that I can't make out whether she is moving or not; but she is not sending as much smoke out of her funnel as she was."
"As indefinite as a broken barometer. But I did not come down to report upon the ship alone," added the lookoutman.
"Give out the text, and go on with the sermon."
"The text is in the back part of Jonah, where Job swallowed the whale. The Fatty has come about and is now under a full head of steam, as nearly as I can judge," said Felix, who thought he was treated with too much levity over a serious subject. "I couldn't see her compass, but the arrow-head is directly under the mark, according to my figuring of it."
"Don't be too nautical, Flix; but I suppose you mean that she is headed directly for the Maud," replied the captain. "That is precisely what I have been satisfied from the beginning she would do."
"Then Morris may enter on his log-slate that the chase began at 11.15 A.M.," said Louis as he glanced at the clock over the binnacle.
"Not just yet, Morris," replied Captain Scott, who seemed to have no apprehension that the Moor would overhaul the Maud. "Let me have your glass, Flix; and it is your trick at the wheel, Louis."
He took the spy-glass and left the pilot-house. They saw him climb the ladder to the hurricane deck, and it was evident that he intended to take a look for himself.
"He does not accept my report," said Felix with a laugh.
"But he said just now that you had wonderfully sharp eyes, Flix," added Louis.
But the captain returned in a few minutes, and reported what steamers were in sight, with the added information that none of them were headed to the north-east; his shipmates could not see the significance of his information. He rang the speed bell, and Morris noted the time on the slate.
Captain Scott had evidently visited the hurricane deck with the spy-glass for the purpose of scanning the sea within eight or ten miles of the Maud, as his report was that no steamers going in a northeasterly direction were in sight. He did not say that he feared any interference on the part of such vessels if any were near. At eleven o'clock it was time for Felix to take his trick at the wheel; Morris's watch, consisting of himself and Louis, were off duty.