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"Murder as cruel as ever was done," I said, and told him further of the round hole that bored itself in John Ozanne's forehead right before my eyes. "By !" he said again, and more lustily than ever. "I hope to God we don't run across him! Which way did he go, did you say?" "He went off nor'-east, but his prowling-ground is hereabouts. What guns do you carry, sir?" "Ten eighteen-pound carronades."
I shall never forget the surprise I got the first time I saw a whale. It was in the forenoon of a most splendid day, about a week after we arrived at that part of the ocean where we might expect to find fish. A light nor'-east breeze was blowing, but it scarcely ruffled the sea, as we crept slowly through the water with every stitch of canvas set.
We accomplished this in another fortnight after rounding the Cape; and then, steering up the chart again, we shaped our course nor'-east by north, so as to cross the southern tropic in longitude 102 degrees East.
Shaping a course from here to pass about a hundred miles to the southward of Madagascar, our nor'-east wind changing to a nor'-westward in 15 degrees south latitude, which was all the more favourable for us, we were able to fetch the Cape of Good Hope in forty-three days from our start.
Can't you see for yoursel'? It's because he is bound for the New Jeroosalem; because bless his tender soul! that's all the land he'll ever touch." "Good Lord!" I cried. "Nonsense! His cough's better; and look at his cheeks." "Ay we knows that colour on this line. His cough's better, you say; and I say this weather's killing him. You just wait for the nor'-east trades."
It was the 14th September when we sailed; and, although it was rather early in the year for it, the nor'-east monsoon had already begun to blow, fine and dry and cold, bowling us down through the Formosa Channel and into the China Sea beyond, "as if ould Nick war arter us," as Tim Rooney said.
I see all our vessels are getting their boats in; we'd better follow suit. How's the glass, skipper?" "Never saw anything like it, sir. This night isn't over yet, and I reckon what's coming is coming from the nor'-east. We're going to reef down. I haven't seen anything like this since 1866, and I remember we had just such another evening."
Do you see the high cliffs yonder away to the nor'-east? Weel, there are great masses o' ice that have been formed against them by the melting and freezing of the snows of many years. When these become too heavy to stick to the cliffs, they tumble into the sea and float away as icebergs. But the biggest bergs come from the foot of glaciers. You know what glaciers are, Mivins?" "No, sir, I don't."
To come now to the smaller subdivisions, it will suffice to take a quarter of the circle. Thus, in reading off the compass, we say beginning at north and proceeding to east North: north by east; nor'-nor'-east; nor'-east by north; nor'-east; nor'-east by east; east nor'-east; east by north; east; and so on with the other quarters of the circle. So much for "boxing the compass."
We thought the blissful period would never come. But `it's a long lane that knows no turning'; and, winter ebbing away into the flood of spring anon, we, with some ninety and nine other youngsters of the same standing, set sail one fine April morning from Portsmouth Harbour, the Martin slipping her buoy abreast of Blockhouse Fort, and standing out into the Solent under easy canvas, with a fair wind from the nor'-east.
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