rt without further delay, since, if our
boat was to be of any real service to us, she ought to be able to live
in such a sea as was now running outside.

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning when we reached the open sea;
and the first discovery which we made with regard to our boat was that,
thanks to her double keel, she would forge ahead with the wind anywhere
at all abaft the beam--not at any great speed, certainly, with the wind
only about one point free, but still fast enough to enable us to control
her with a steering oar. When we bore up before the wind, she moved
under the impetus of the breeze almost as fast as we had been able to
row her in the lagoon. Our second discovery with regard to her was no
less pleasing. Owing to the peculiar shape of her floor, which, it will
be remembered, sloped up fore and aft somewhat after the fashion of that
of a fishing punt, she rode the seas with extraordinary buoyancy, and as
dry as a bone.

Being without either chart or compass, we could not, of course, steer
any definite course, and therefore kept our craft dead before the wind
and sea. Julius and I each wielded an oar until the boy was tired, when
Susie, the second stewardess, who was a fine, strong, strapping girl,
took a spell, and soon picked up the trick of rowing. When she was
tired, Lizette, the chief stewardess, must needs try her hand; but she
proved much less adaptable than her assistant, and did little more than
blister her hands. Julius then took another spell, and by the time he
was tired I was tired too. We therefore gave up rowing for a bit, and
Mrs Vansittart undertook to steer the boat by means of an oar over the
stern. By this time we had dropped the reef out of sight astern, and
were beginning to realise fully that we were veritable castaways--a fact
which I think had never hitherto quite come home to any of us.

The thing that worried me most was the absence of sail on the boat. Now
that we had definitely and irretrievably embarked ourselves and our
fortunes in her, I wanted to get over the ground at a good pace instead
of drifting snail-like before wind and sea; and I set myself to consider
whether, with the materials at my command, I could not rig up something
that would serve the purpose of a mast and sail. I had the best part of
a coil of good useful line in the boat, half a dozen three-by-nine-inch
planks, each of which was twelve feet in length--and that was all,
excepting of co