when you had bottom under you?"

"No arguments!" yelled Swarth. "Forrard with you. What are you doing on
the poop, anyway? If you can't see, you can feel, and what more do you
want? Jump, now. Set that head-sail and get her 'fore the wind--quick,
or I'll drop some of you."

They knew their captain, and they knew the ropes--on the blackest of
dark nights. Blind men climbed aloft, and felt for foot-ropes and
gaskets. Blind men on deck felt for sheets, halyards, and braces, and
in ten minutes the sails were set, and the brig was charging wildly
along before the gale, with two blind men at the wheel endeavoring to
keep her straight by the right and left pressure of the wind on their
faces.

"Keep the wind as much on the port quarter as you can without broaching
to," yelled the captain in their ears, and they answered and did their
best. She was a clean-lined craft and steered easily; yet the off-shore
sea which was rising often threw her around until nearly in the trough.
The captain remained by them, advising and encouraging.

"Where're ye goin', Bill?" asked the mate, weakly, as he scrambled up
to him.

"Right out to sea, and, unless we get our eyes back soon, right across
to the Bight of Benin, three thousand miles from here. We've no
business on this coast in this condition. What ails you, Angel? Lost
your nerve?"

"Mebbe, Bill." The mate's voice was hoarse and strained. "This is new
to me. I'm falling--falling--all the time."

"So am I. Brace up. We'll get used to it. Get a couple of hands aft and
heave the log. We take our departure from Kittredge Point, Barbados
Island, at six o'clock this morning of the 10th October. We'll keep a
Geordie's log-book--with a jack-knife and a stick."

They hove the log for him. It was marked for a now useless 28-second
sand-glass, which Captain Swarth replaced by a spare chronometer, held
to his ear in the companionway. It ticked even seconds, and when
twenty-eight of them had passed he called, "Stop." The markings on the
line that had slipped through the mate's fingers indicated an
eight-knot speed.

"Seven, allowing for wild steering," said the captain when he had
stowed away his chronometer and returned to the deck. "Angel, we know
we're going about sou'east by east, seven knots. There's practically
no variation o' the compass in these seas, and that course'll take us
clear of Cape St. Roque. Just as fast as the men can stand it at the
wheel, we'll pile on canvas and ge