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Anything, I thought, was better than this; therefore, having first gone down below and brought up the chronometer, my sextant, and a chart of the Atlantic, and stowed the whole carefully in the stern-sheets of the longboat, loaded my pistols, and girded my sword to my side, I went forward to the fore-scuttle and, putting my head into it, shouted in as cheery a tone as I could summon: "Now then, lads, tumble up on deck, all hands of you.
Mr Gaunt even went so far as to unpack his own sextant an exceptionally fine instrument and to spend most of the time between luncheon and dinner on the topgallant forecastle, in company with the skipper, measuring the angle between the stranger's mast-heads and the horizon.
I didn't try to, only he forgot I was on the other side of the skylight with my sextant I overheard him you know how he sits hanging over her chair and talking away without properly opening his mouth yes I caught the word right enough. He was alluding to the captain as `the jailer. The jail!" Franklin broke off with a profane execration.
I was not a merchant who carried merchandise, but a prince like himself, come on a friendly mission to see him and Rumanika. I was waiting at night for the return of the messengers, and sitting out with my sextant observing the stars, to fix my position, when some daring thieves, in the dark bushes close by, accosted two of the women of the camp, pretending a desire to know what I was doing.
I dared not make any quick movement, but slowly withdrawing my right hand from the sextant, I took hold of my rifle which lay close alongside. A second of time was of the greatest importance, for the enemy were all ranged, and just ready balancing their spears, and in another instant there would have been a hundred spears thrown into the camp.
While the low-lying haze narrowed my horizon it did not sufficiently obscure the sun to interfere with sight-taking; I could count upon finding the chronometers still going, they being made to run for fifty-six hours and the ship having been abandoned only the night before; and where I found the chronometers I felt sure that I should find also a sextant and a chart.
One of the officers with the sextant ascertained the angle between two points on the coast, while other men, under the generalship of one of the cable experts, took deep-sea soundings, not only that the depth of the water might be known, but also its temperature and the character of the bottom, so one could judge of its effect upon the cable when laid, every idiosyncrasy of that cable being already a study of some import to the testing department.
Observations taken with the sextant showed that there was no port within five hundred miles; the island looked as if it might be inhabited at least by goats, and ashore we went, every man of us, leaving the House-boat safely anchored in the harbor.
A faint spongy spot of brightness gleamed through the grey roof overhead. The indistinct outline grew a little clearer; one-half of him, though still behind a cloud, hardened into a sharp edge. Up went the sextant. Wyse. "52.41, my Lord!" cried he, in return; there was only the discrepancy of a mile between us.
The sextant was kicked to pieces, the frying-pan and spy-glass were put out of shape, the thermometer lost its mercury, and at last, by dint of shaking, rolling, and kicking, the brute got rid of his entire load and saddle, and then came quietly to us, apparently very well satisfied with himself and with the damage he had done.
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