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Much to the satisfaction of Captain Drawlock, the chronometers and the ladies were safe on board, and the Bombay Castle proceeded to the Downs, where she was joined by the purser, charged with the despatches of the august directors. Once upon a time a director was a very great man, and the India board a very great board.
Captain Blyth had therefore no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the vessel must have been capsized in a very similar squall to that which had struck the Flying Cloud on the previous day, and at about the same moment. This surmise was confirmed by the fact that when Mr Gaunt had entered the captain's state-room he had found the chronometers still going, though nearly run down.
Budd had two, and they were as large as compasses, and sold for hundreds after his lamented decease." "They were ship's chronometers, but mine was made for the pocket. It is true, chronometers are intended to keep the most accurate time, and usually they do; this of mine, in particular, would not lose ten seconds in a twelvemonth, did I not carry it on my person."
He ordered the officer of the watch to keep the ship as close to the wind as possible. He should like to examine it if he could. The master represented, respectfully, that it would be unadvisable to beat to windward for that. "I have no faith in our chronometers, sir, and it is important to make the island before dark; fogs rise here so suddenly." "Very well, Mr.
Though there was no one navigating the boat, Denman, in view of future need of it, took upon himself the winding of the chronometers; and the days went on, Casey and Munson reporting messages sent from shore to ship; battle-ships, cruisers, scouts, and destroyers appearing and disappearing, and their craft racing around the Atlantic like a hunted fox.
Chronometers were not, by any means, in as general use at the period of our tale as they are to-day; and the deacon abhorred the expense to which such an article would have put him. Could he have got one at a fourth of the customary price he might have been tempted; but it formed no part of his principles of saving to anticipate and prevent waste by liberality.
Now the admiral of the coast had this piratical privilege: and as, in former days, sextants and chronometers were unknown, sea-faring men incurred more risk than they do at present, and the wrecks which strewed the coast were of very great value. I had a proof the other day that this right is still exacted; that is as far as regards property unclaimed.
The greatest brain that ever lived, no doubt, was only a small fraction of an idea ahead of the second best. Just look at the chess-players. Leaving out the phenomenal exceptions, the nice shades that separate the skilful ones show how closely their brains approximate, almost as closely as chronometers. Such a person is a "knight-player," he must have that piece given him.
Like Peter the Great, he founded dockyards, and built ships of war equal to first-class English vessels, navigating them, not by eyes painted in front, as of old, but by chronometers and Greenwich tables. He introduced European discipline into the army, and taught it how to use artillery.
There were no papers of any kind, but from the appearance of the chronometers, I should say that they cannot have been here long.” The captain nodded. “We will talk it over when we get on board, Steve. We will be off at once, for these fellows are beginning to get drunk with this beastly liquor of theirs, and it is best that we should get out of the place before there is any excuse for a quarrel.”
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