"All I now ask, my dear young lady," he said to Eve, who ventured on deck to look at the desolation, as soon the wreck was cut adrift, "all I now ask, my dear young lady, is an end to westerly winds for two or three weeks, and I will promise to place you all in America yet, in time to eat your Christmas dinner. I do not think Sir George will shoot many white bears among the Rocky Mountains this year, but then there will be so many more left for another season. The ship is in a category, and he will be an impudent scoundrel who denies it; but worse categories than this have been reasoned out of countenance. All head-sail is not a convenient show of cloth to claw off a lee-shore with; but I still hope to escape the misfortune of laying eyes on the coast of Africa."
"Are we far from it?" asked Eve, who sufficiently understood the danger of being on an uninhabitable shore in their present situation; one in which it was vain to seek for a port. "I would rather be in the neighbourhood of any other land, I think, than that of Africa."
"Especially Africa between the Canaries and Cape Blanco," returned Captain Truck, with an expressive shrug. "More hospitable regions exist, certainly; for, if accounts are to be credited, the honest people along-shore never get a Christian that they do not mount him on a camel, and trot him through the sands a thousand miles or so, under a hot sun, with a sort of haggis for food, that would go nigh to take away even a Scotchman's appetite."
"And you do not tell us how far we are from this frightful land, Mons. le Capitaine?" inquired Mademoiselle Viefville.
"In ten minutes you shall know, ladies, for I am about to observe for the longitude. It is a little late, but it may yet be done."
"And we may rely on the fidelity of your information?"
The ladies were silent, while Mr. Truck proceeded to get the sun and the time. As soon as he had run through his calculations, he came to them with a face in which the eye was roving, though it was still good-humoured and smiling.
"Is not quite as flattering as I could wish. We are materially within a degree of the coast; but, as the wind is gone, or nearly so, we may hope to find a shift that will shove us farther from the land. And now I have dealt frankly with you, let me beg you will keep the secret, for my people will be dreaming of Turks, instead of working, if they knew the fact."