eight bells instead of six before we should reach the imaginary
line for which we were making; and at a quarter to eight--having
previously sent a hand aloft to take a careful look round--I gave the
order to up helm and bear away upon a west-south-west course, and to
pack the studding-sails upon the little hooker. The men--thanks to good
feeding and all the rest I could give them consistent with the
maintenance of proper discipline--had by this time completely recovered
from the effects of our boat voyage, and were one and all as keen as
needles on the lookout for the boats from the moment that we squared
away, the watch, all but the helmsman, taking to the rigging--without
any orders from me--immediately that they had finished breakfast, and
disposing themselves upon the royal and topgallant yards in their
eagerness to catch the earliest possible glimpse of their shipmates. I
calculated that at about five bells in the forenoon watch we ought to
overtake the dinghy,--the slowest boat in the fleet,--and as that moment
drew near our anxiety reached a most painful pitch, the men on the yards
straining their eyes to the utmost as they peered intently into the
distance from right ahead to broad on either beam, carefully and slowly
scanning the horizon for the little blot of gleaming canvas that should
proclaim the success of our quest. But the fateful moment came and
went, leaving the horizon a blank. Noon arrived, and I secured an
excellent observation for my latitude, by means of which I was enabled
to check my previous dead reckoning, which tallied to within less than a
mile of what it ought to be; and still there was no sign of the missing
boat, although my calculations showed that we had overrun by some
fifteen miles the spot where we expected to find her. I hailed the
yards, inquiring whether there was any possibility of our having run
past the dinghy without observing her; but the men assured me that they
had maintained so bright a lookout that had she been anywhere within the
boundaries of our horizon they would assuredly have seen her.

This was rather disconcerting, yet I felt that I had no real cause for
disappointment; the boats might have met with rather fresher winds than
I had estimated for, in which case the likelihood was that they were
still many miles ahead of us. My calculations had been based upon the
supposition that they had been evenly maintaining the same rate of speed
from the moment when we p