Asiatic Breezes Part 4

"Honestly, Flix, I did not understand what you meant. I have studied up the navigation in this region," continued Captain Scott, as he took from a drawer in the case on which the binnacle stood a small plan of the port in question. "Look at that, Flix, and tell me what the diaeresis over the i in Sad is for."

"It means that the two vowels in the word are to be p.r.o.nounced separately, and I stand corrected," answered Felix promptly.

"I did not mean to correct you; for I make too many blunders myself to pick up another fellow for doing so. I only wanted to explain why I did not understand you. I had got used to p.r.o.nouncing it Sah-eed, and Sed does not sound much like it, and I did not take in what you meant, and thought you were talking about some port in the island of Cyprus, where we are bound."

"I accept your apology, Captain, and shift all the guilt to my own shoulders. Now may I ask how far it is from here to Port Sah-eed?"

replied Felix very good-naturedly.

"It is 101.76 miles, by which, of course, I mean knots. I figured it up from a point north of Rosetta," added the navigator.

"Won't you throw off the fraction?"

"No; if you run one hundred and one miles only, you will fetch up three-quarters of a knot to the westward of the red light at the end of the breakwater."

"That is putting a fine point on it; but I will go on the hurricane deck and see what the Fatty is about," replied Felix.

"You have not rung the speed bell, Captain Scott, since you started the screw," suggested Louis.

"I did not intend to do so yet a while," replied the captain. "I want to know what the Fatty is about, as Felix calls her; and I think we had better translate her heathen name into plain English."

"Flix's name would apply better to Uncle Moses and Dr. Hawkes than to the Moorish steamer."

"We had a girl in our high school who bore that name, though she was a full-blooded New Yorker; but the master always insisted upon putting the accent on the first syllable, declaring that was the right way to p.r.o.nounce it. I know we have always p.r.o.nounced the word Fat'-ee-may, and that is where Flix got the foundation for his abbreviation."

"Fatty it is, Captain, if you say so. I wonder what the Fatty is about just now?" added Louis.

"Flix will soon enlighten us on that subject, for he has a wonderfully sharp pair of eyes."

"Do you really believe we shall get over to Cyprus, Captain Scott?"

asked Louis, looking sharply into the eyes of the navigator.

"Why should we not?"

"Because I don't believe Captain Ringgold intends to turn us loose on the Mediterranean, and let us go it on our own hook, or rather on your own hook; for you are the commander, and all the rest of us have to do is to obey your orders," said Louis; and the little tiff between them had gently and remotely suggested to him that Captain Scott had some purpose in his mind which he would not explain to anybody.

His hint that if he were in command of the Guardian-Mother he would make a hole in the side of the Fatime, pointed to something of this kind, though probably it was nothing more than a vague idea. He had suggested the plan upon which the ship and her consort were then acting, and perhaps it had some possibility of which the commander had not yet dreamed.

"Can you tell me why that steam-yacht of over six hundred tons is crowding on steam, and running away towards Port Said, while we are, by Captain Ringgold's order, headed for Cyprus?" asked the captain.

"Of course I can. He expects by this means to draw off the Fatty, and set her to chasing the Maud, so that the party will not be bothered with any conspiracies while we are going through the ca.n.a.l," replied Louis.

"What then?"

"If the Fatty chases us, the Guardian-Mother will put in an appearance before any harm comes to the Maud, or to any one on board of her."

"Precisely so; that is the way the business is laid out," replied Captain Scott; but he looked just as though something more might be said which he did not care to say.

"But it remains to be shown whether the Fatty will follow the Maud or the ship," added Louis.

"She will not follow the Guardian-Mother," said the navigator very decidedly.

"How do you know, Captain? You speak as positively as though Captain Mazagan had told you precisely what he intended to do."

"Of course he has told me nothing, for I have not seen him. Common-sense is all I have to guide me."

They were about to go into a further discussion of the question when Felix came tumbling down the ladder from the upper deck as though he was in a hurry.

"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."

"Then your news is a little indefinite."

"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 compa.s.s, 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 gla.s.s, Flix; and it is your trick at the wheel, Louis."

He took the spy-gla.s.s 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.

"Yet he will not trust them."

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.

CHAPTER V

LOUIS BELGRAVE HAS SOME MISGIVINGS

Captain Scott had evidently visited the hurricane deck with the spy-gla.s.s 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.