lding fast on to the stanchions. I was
clearing my throat to hail these last, when Haigh turned and told me I
might save my wind.

"Never mind," he said; "I know her well. She's the _Eugene
Perrier_, a Transatlantique Company's boat, one of the quick line
out of Algiers for Marseille. Look at your compass, and note the course
she's steering--N.N.E. and by E. That's from Cape Bajoli straight for
Marseille. They run both ways between Mallorca and Minorca without
touching. Hooray! who says our luck isn't stupendous? Here we are, not
having made enough southing, and heading so as to fetch Gibraltar
without sighting the islands at all; and then in the nick of time up
comes a _dea ex machina_ in the guise of the _Eugene Perrier_
to shove us on the course again. In main-sheet, and then, blow me if we
won't have a bottle of that vermouth by way of celebrating the event in
a way at once highly becoming and original."

We made a landfall that afternoon off some of the high ground in
North-east Mallorca, and Haigh gave over champing his cold cigar-butt,
and delivered himself of an idea.

"Isn't there another harbour in Minorca besides Port Mahon?"

I said I believed there were some half-dozen small ones.

"Any this west side?"

"Ciudadella, about in the middle."

"Know anything about it?"

"Nothing, except the fact of its existence; and as we have no vestige
of chart, I don't exactly see how we are to learn anything more."

"Precisely. Then, my dear chap, to finish this cruise consistently,
Ciudadella must now become our objective. It would take us another day
to run round under the lee of the island to Port Mahon, and days are
valuable. The cutter's only drawing five foot five, and with our luck
at its present premium you'll see we'll worry in somehow without piling
her up. Perhaps we may get some misguided person to come out and con
us. Of course we'll take him if any one does offer, and owe him the
pilotage; but I'd just as soon we navigated her on our own impudent
hook. It's no use having a big credit on the Universal Luck Bank if you
don't draw on it heavily. The concern may bust up any day."

Luckily for us the gale had eased, or we should never have been able to
put the cutter on the wind. But as it was, with a four-reefed mainsail
and a bit of a pocket-handkerchief jib, she lay the course like a
Cowes-built racing forty; and if she did ship it green occasionally,
there was no rail to hold the water in board. We