"You are absurdly reticent, Mr. Trask."
"Under the circ.u.mstances it would be unfair to state the facts in their blunt simplicity," he retorted, with a smile.
"You mean father and me?"
"Mostly you," and he moved forward abruptly to tell Doc Bird to put his bags in his room.
Locke and Jarrow came out of the main cabin and paid off the _patron_ of the tug.
"Well, we"re off," said Locke, coming aft, as Jarrow went forward to oversee the getting of the anchor and the pa.s.sing of the hawser. Bevins came aft presently and took the wheel, and in a few minutes the _Nuestra_ started down the bay at the end of her leash.
Well under way, Jarrow called Peth to the main cabin and introduced him to Marjorie, Locke, and Trask, who had been summoned below for the a.s.signment of their rooms.
Peth stood in the doorway and bowed, looking quite smart and respectable in clean dungarees, and though he said nothing but "How de do," he gave the impression of affability mixed with shyness. He missed no detail of Trask"s clothing, and seemed to measure the young man"s strength as he looked him up and down.
"Now, Miss Locke, you"ll have this room aft, to port, next is Mr.
Locke, and then Mr. Trask. Then comes the cabin stores. I"ll be aft to starboard, Mr. Peth and Captain Dinshaw next, the cook and the steward, and the galley----"
"If ye don"t mind, cap"n," interrupted Peth, "I"d not want to bunk with the old man. I got to be up and around nights."
"All right," said Jarrow. "There are two bunks in Mr. Trask"s room here. Maybe you wouldn"t find it out of the way if Mr. Peth took the lower?"
"Not at all," said Trask. "I"ll sleep soundly enough."
"My gear"s in there now," said Peth, and he went out on deck.
"I"d git my stuff all opened up and stowed while we"re in the bay,"
suggested Jarrow. "There may be a swell on outside, and then it"s goin" to be hot below as the sun climbs. Tom! How"s that coffee comin" on?"
The fat Chinese cook looked out from the galley, a white cap on his head and an ap.r.o.n tied about him. He grinned pleasantly, and replied that the coffee was on the fire.
"We had breakfast," said Locke.
"I"d take a nip of coffee," said Jarrow. "Now then, here"s Doc Bird to help open your gear. Anything you want, ask for it, and you, Doc, keep an eye out to make all hands comfortable. I got to go up now."
Trask followed the captain up the companion and left Marjorie and her father below, until he was called to have his coffee. When they went on deck again Corregidor Island was astern, rising out of the channel like a derelict battleship.
To starboard, close aboard beyond the stretch of sun-dazzled sea, was the coast of Bataan, with the brown fuzzy mountains behind Mariveles shouldering into the sky. Point Luzon marked the limit of the land over the starboard bow, and on the port side the shining China Sea reached away to the horizon.
The jib and foresail were already set although the tug had not cast off. Soon they began to fill, and as Peth bawled to the tug, the hawser was dropped, and tooting a farewell, the little boat swung in a wide arc and headed back for Manila.
Peth came aft and routed Doc Bird from under the mainsail boom where the steward sat peeling potatoes. Dinshaw kept moving about, repeating the orders of the mate, or talking to himself.
The crew were all white, in accordance with the orders of Locke, who had declared that he did not want to undertake the voyage with natives forward.
The breeze from landward died as the main was being set, and the _Nuestra_ began to roll gently as she fell off. For a few minutes she threatened to follow the tug back to Manila, with many lurches and angry snappings of blocks.
"We"ll git a clinkin" good breeze from the south"ard when we"re off the land," said Jarrow, glancing aloft to the windvane on the mizzen truck. It was flopping about like a dead fish on a gaff.
Before long the foresail began to fret its sheets, and Bevins got her head to seaward. Then there came from astern a hot, puffy breeze, and the schooner stood out on a port tack, curvetting prettily as her sails were trimmed and filled.
One of the crew, hailed as Pennock, now came aft and took the wheel, and Bevins went forward. Captain Dinshaw went into the cabin, and looking down, Trask could see him bent over the table, sucking a stub of a pencil and studying a sheet of paper.
"What"s the bearin" and distance of Point Luzon?" he called up the companion.
Jarrow looked at Locke and smiled.
"Northwest, five miles," called Jarrow, after a look at the compa.s.s and the land.
"What course ye steerin"?"
"Nor"wes"bywes"."
"Variation, one degree east," remarked Dinshaw, and went back to his figuring, talking to himself and scratching his head. From his conduct since sailing it was obvious that he intended to hold himself aloof from the rest of the party.
"Thinks he"s navigatin"," whispered Jarrow, with a wink to Trask.
"He looks a lot better than he did," said Locke. "Has more colour and walks with more vigour."
"Good eatin"," said Jarrow. "He perked right up the minute he come aboard. Acts like he"s master. Don"t do no harm, only Mr. Peth gits rubbed the wrong way sometimes. I say, if the old man gits any fun out of thinkin" it"s his own schooner, what"s the odds?"
"How did you come out on getting anything certain about the position of his island?" asked Locke. "From what you said last night it was a sure thing."
"Oh, we know where we"re goin" right enough," said Jarrow.
"Then he"s given you some more data?"
"We ain"t goin" on his say-so. He give me the leaf out of his old log, with his noon position the day before he was lifted off his course by the typhoon."
"Is that enough?"
"We ought to run slap into his island. It"s one of the Capones, off the Zambales coast. There"s a whole flock of "em, but the one I figure on stands out from the rest, from what I"ve worked."
"Wilkins, at the hotel, was telling me the geodetic people couldn"t find the island."
"Wilkins?" Jarrow turned and looked at Locke intently. "Oh, yes.
Did he say anything about me?"
"Yes, he spoke very highly of you."
"Well, it"s this way," said Jarrow, after a thoughtful pause. "The old man didn"t give "em the right position. He said he"d piled up near one of the Sisters, just to the south"ard of the Little Sister, to be exact. But that"s more"n sixty miles north of where the _Wetherall_ struck. Ye see, the old man didn"t want n.o.body to find the island if he couldn"t go himself. But he"s all right now."
Peth came up the weather side of the p.o.o.p, and seeing the trio with the captain, turned abruptly to go forward again.
"Did you want to see me, Mr. Peth?" called Jarrow.
The mate stopped, and pushing his cap to the back of his head, grumbled an a.s.sent.
"What about?" asked Jarrow, leaning his elbows on the top of the cabin trunk.