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He ceased and gazed solicitously at Captain Davenport, who, bending over the chart with a pair of dividers in hand, had just emitted a low groan.

“Is there any lagoon with an entrance anywhere nearer than Hao Island?” he asked.

“No, Captain; that is the nearest.”

“Well, it’s three hundred and forty miles.” Captain Davenport was speaking very slowly, with decision.”I won’t risk the responsibility of all these lives. I’ll wreck her on the Acteons. And she’s a good ship, too,” he added regretfully, after altering the course, this time making more allowance than ever for the westerly current.

An hour later the sky was overcast. The southeast trade still held, but the ocean was a checker board of squalls.

“We’ll be there by one o’clock,” Captain Davenport announced confidently.”By two o’clock at the outside. McCoy, you put her ashore on the one where the people are.”

The sun did not appear again, nor, at one o’clock, was any land to be seen. Captain Davenport looked astern at the Pyrenees‘ canting wake.

“Good Lord!” he cried.”An easterly current? Look at that!”

Mr. Konig was incredulous. McCoy was noncommittal, though he said that in the Paumotus there was no reason why it should not be an easterly current. A few minutes later a squall robbed the Pyreneestemporarily of all her wind, and she was left rolling heavily in the trough.

“Where’s that deep lead? Over with it, you there!” Captain Davenport held the lead line and watched it sag off to the northeast.”There, look at that! Take hold of it for yourself.”

McCoy and the mate tried it, and felt the line thrumming and vibrating savagely to the grip of the tidal stream.

“A four-knot current,” said Mr. Konig.

“An easterly current instead of a westerly,” said Captain “Davenport, glaring accusingly at McCoy, as if to cast the blame for it upon him.

“That is one of the reasons, Captain, for insurance being eighteen per cent in these waters,” McCoy answered cheerfully.”You can never tell. The currents are always changing. There was a man who wrote books, I forget his name, in the yacht Casco.

He missed Takaroa by thirty miles and fetched Tikei, all because of the shifting currents. You are up to windward now, and you’d better keep off a few points.”

“But how much has this current set me?” the captain demanded irately.”How
am I to know how much to keep off?”

“I don’t know, Captain,” McCoy said with great gentleness. The wind returned, and the Pyrenees, her deck smoking and shimmering in the bright gray light, ran off dead to leeward. Then she worked back, port tack and starboard tack, crisscrossing her track, combing the sea for the Acteon Islands, which the masthead lookouts failed to sight.

Captain Davenport was beside himself. His rage took the form of sullen silence, and he spent the afternoon in pacing the poop or leaning against the weather shrouds. At nightfall, without even consulting McCoy, he squared away and headed into the northwest. Mr. Konig, surreptitiously consulting chart and binnacle, and McCoy, openly and innocently consulting the binnacle, knew that they were running for Hao Island. By midnight the squalls ceased, and the stars came out. Captain Davenport was cheered by the promise of a clear day.

“I’ll get an observation in the morning,” he told McCoy, “though what my latitude is, is a puzzler. But I’ll use the Sumner method, and settle that. Do you know the Sumner line?”

And thereupon he explained it in detail to McCoy.

The day proved clear, the trade blew steadily out of the east, and the Pyreneesjust as steadily logged her nine knots. Both the captain and mate worked out the position on a Sumner line, and agreed, and at noon agreed again, and verified the morning sights by the noon sights.