ing fore
and main lug and a small jib, and, with her ordinary crew on board and
sitting to windward, required no ballast even in a fresh breeze. Small
wonder, therefore, was it that, having such a boat under us, we had run
the rest of the fleet out of sight by midday, the wind still blowing
strong, although it was moderating rapidly.

The first lieutenant was, like the captain, fond of inventing and
designing things, but his speciality took the form of logs for
determining the speed of craft through the water; and in the course of
his experiments he had provided each of the frigate's boats with an
ingenious spring arrangement which, attached to an ordinary fishing-line
with a lead weight secured to its outer end, which was continuously
towed astern, registered the speed of the boat with a very near approach
to perfect accuracy.

The day passed uneventfully away, the wind moderating steadily all the
time, and the sun breaking through considerably before noon, enabling me
to secure a meridian altitude wherefrom to compute my latitude. The
sea, too, was going down, and when the sun set that night the sky wore a
very promising fine-weather aspect. As the great golden orb vanished
below the horizon we rounded the boat to, lowered our sails, and moored
her to a sea anchor made of the oars lashed together in a bundle with
the painter bent on to them. And later on, when it fell dark, we
lighted a lantern and hoisted it to our fore-masthead, as a beacon for
which the other boats might steer. The gig had behaved splendidly all
through the day, never shipping so much as a single drop of water, and
now that she was riding to her oars she took the sea so easily and
buoyantly that I felt as safe as I had ever done aboard the poor old
_Althea_ herself, and unhesitatingly allowed all hands to turn in as
best they could in the bottom of the boat, undertaking to keep a lookout
myself until the other boats had joined company.

The first boat to make her appearance was the service gig in charge of
Mr Flowers, the third lieutenant; she ranged up alongside and hove-to
about two hours after sunset, soon afterwards following our example by
throwing out a sea anchor. Then came the first and second cutters, in
command of the first and second lieutenants; the first cutter arriving
about an hour after Mr Flowers, while the second cutter appeared about
a quarter of an hour later. The launch followed about half an hour
astern of the second