s.

"Ah, doctor, you do not know what grief and anguish are like!" he said
mournfully. "But to go on with my story. I may tell you that, had our
voyage progressed like our start, I should have nothing to deplore, for,
the land breeze filling our sails, we bore away buoyantly from the
Venezuelan coast, the ship shaping a course north by west towards the
Mona passage, as the channel way is called, from a rock in its centre,
lying between Hayti and Puerto Rico. This route is held to be the best,
I believe, for passing out into the open Atlantic from the labyrinthine
groups of islands and innumerable islets that gem the blue waters of the
Caribbean Sea. It is a course, too, which by its directness and the
northerly current and westerly wind there to be met, saves a lot of
useless tacking about and beating to windward, as you, no doubt,
captain, very well know."

The skipper nodded his head.

"You're quite a sailor, colonel," he said approvingly. "Where did you
manage to pick up your knowledge of navigation and sea-faring matters,
if I may ask the question, sir?"

"In the many voyages I have made during a somewhat adventurous life,"
replied the other. "I have invariably kept my ears and eyes open,
captain. There are many things thus to be learnt, I have found out from
experience, which, although seemingly unimportant in themselves,
frequently turn out afterwards to be of very great use to us, sometimes,
indeed, almost unexpectedly so!"

"Aye, aye, colonel. My opinion, sir, right down to the ground," said
the skipper, looking towards me. "Just you put that in your pipe, Dick
Haldane, and smoke it!"

"Yes, young sir," added Colonel Vereker, emphasising this piece of
advice. "That rule of life has stood me in good stead on more than one
occasion, both on land and on shipboard. Had I not learnt something of
the ways of your sailors, for instance, I might not have thought of
lashing the _Saint Pierre's_ helm amidships on the breaking out of the
mutiny, and so prevented all our going to the bottom subsequently, when
it came on to blow; for all of us were then fighting for our lives and
no one had time to attend to the ship, save in the way of letting go
what ropes were handiest."

"Aye, that may be well enough, colonel," observed the skipper in his dry
fashion. "But your argument cuts both ways. If your helm hadn't been
lashed down, remember, the ship would have been yawing about and
drifting in this directio