"So that is my ghost yarn. It conveys a moral, does it not? Order them to strike the bell forward. Hislop, call the watch; see how her head bears, and let us turn in."
A HURRICANE DRIVES US TO THE FORTUNATE ISLES.
Some days after this we passed a carraca, as the Portuguese name those large and round-built vessels which they send to Brazil and the Indies, and which are alike adapted for burden, fighting, and sailing.
On exchanging the bearings--which, when vessels pass each other, are usually chalked on a blackboard hung over the quarter--Weston and Hislop found a considerable difference between the Portuguese and ours; but never doubting that we were correct, they bore on without hailing the carraca, as we passed each other on opposite tacks under a press of sail.
The weather continued cloudy, and an increased difference was found on exchanging the latitude and longitude with another vessel next morning. Then, after an observation at noon. Weston found that for more than fifty hours the _Eugenie_ had been going several miles to the south-east of her due course.
The compass was immediately overhauled by Hislop, who found that the standard of the needle was loose.
On that night there commenced a long course of head winds and foul weather, during which the compass never worked properly, and the captain and mate found, by the first solar observation, that we had drifted so far to leeward as to be somewhere between the parallels of 28° and 28° 35' north.
Tattooed Tom and old Roberts, the man-o'-war's-man, were superstitious enough to give me the entire blame of all this, in consequence of having fired one day at some of Mother Cary's chickens; an action, they averred, which never failed to give the craft of the perpetrator a head wind for the remainder of her voyage--if she ever finished it at all.
"If this foul weather holds for another day," said Weston, as he trod the deck with a sulkiness quite professional under the circumstances, "we shall see land sooner than I wished."
"Land!" I reiterated, brightening at the idea more than he relished.
"Yes, some part of the Canaries--Santa Cruz de la Palma, most likely; but we shall have very rough weather before another sun rises. I know well the signs, Mr. Rodney. Don't you see what is brewing yonder, Hislop?" he said in a low voice to his mate.