The Same Night, Our Flying-Jib-Boom Snapped Off Like A Pipe-Stem, And
Our Spanker-Gaff Came Down By The Run.
By the following morning, the wind in a great measure had gone down;
the sea with it; and by noon we had repaired our damages as well as
we could, and were sailing along as pleasantly as ever.
But there was no help for the demolished bulwarks; we had nothing to
replace them; and so, whenever it breezed again, our dauntless craft
went along with her splintered prow dripping, but kicking up her
fleet heels just as high as before.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CORAL ISLANDS
HOW far we sailed to the westward after leaving the Marquesas, or what
might have been our latitude and longitude at any particular time, or
how many leagues we voyaged on our passage to Tahiti, are matters
about which, I am sorry to say, I cannot with any accuracy enlighten
the reader. Jermin, as navigator, kept our reckoning; and, as hinted
before, kept it all to himself. At noon, he brought out his quadrant,
a rusty old thing, so odd-looking that it might have belonged to an
astrologer.
Sometimes, when rather flustered from his potations, he went
staggering about deck, instrument to eye, looking all over for the
sun - a phenomenon which any sober observer might have seen right
overhead. How upon earth he contrived, on some occasions, to settle
his latitude, is more than I can tell. The longitude he must either
have obtained by the Rule of Three, or else by special revelation.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 74 of 389
Words from 19352 to 19614
of 103097
