r16 FOR THE FLAG

This could not have been done with greater smartness
_and discipline on board a man-of-war.

The Edda perceptibly increased her speed. Still the
motor had not ceased to work, for the sails were not as
full as they would have been were the schooner driven
by them alone.

The sky was clear, the faint clouds rising in the west
melted away as they reached the zenith, and the sea
shone in the sunlight.

My chief concern is to ascertain as nearly as possible
the course we are taking. I have travelled enough by
sea to be able to calculate the speed of a vessel, and I
estimate that the £dda’s rate must be between ten and
eleven miles. As to her steering direction, it is always the
same, and it is easy to ascertain it by looking at the
binnacle, which stands before the man at the helm. If
Gaydon the keeper is forbidden the fore part of the
Ebba, he is not banished the aft. Often I have been
able to glance at the compass, and its needle invariably
points to the east, or to be more exact, east-south-east.
We are, then, crossing that portion of the Atlantic which
is bounded on the west by the coast of the United States.

I have been racking my memory to recall what islands
or groups lie in this direction between us and the con-
tinent of Europe.

North. Carolina, which the schooner left forty- et
hours ago, is crossed by the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude,
and that prolonged towards the east should, if I am not
mistaken, cross the African coast somewhere near