our hundred miles of Juan Fernandez, General Rolleston begged the
captain to make a bold deviation to the S.W., and then see if they could
find nothing there before going to Easter Island.

Captain Moreland was very unwilling to go to the S.W., the more so as
coal was getting short. However, he had not the heart to refuse General
Rolleston anything. There was a northerly breeze. He had the fires put
out, and, covering the ship with canvas, sailed three hundred miles S.W.
But found nothing. Then he took in sail, got up steam again, and away for
Easter Island. The ship ran so fast that she had got into latitude
thirty-two by ten A.M. next morning.

At 10h. 15m. the dreary monotony of this cruise was broken by the man at
the mast-head.

"On deck there!"

"Hullo!"

"The schooner on our weather-bow!"

"Well, what of her?"

"She has luffed."

"Well, what o' that?"

"She has altered her course."

"How many points?"

"She was sailing S.E., and now her head is N.E."

"That is curious."

General Rolleston, who had come and listened with a grain of hope, now
sighed, and turned away.

The captain explained kindly that the man was quite right to draw his
captain's attention to the fact of a trading-vessel altering her course.
"There is a sea-grammar, general," said he; "and, when one seaman sees
another violate it, he concludes there is some reason or other. Now,
Jack, what d'ye make of her?"

"I can't make much of her; she don't seem to know her own mind, that is
all. At ten o'clock she was bound for Valparaiso or the Island. But now
she has come about and beating to windward."

"Bound for Easter Island?"

"I dunno."

"Keep your eye on her."

"Ay, ay, sir."

Captain Moreland told General Rolleston that very few ships went to
Easter Island, which lies in a lovely climate, but is a miserable place;
and he was telling the general that it is inhabited by savages of a low
order, who half worship the relics of masonry left by their more
civilized predecessors, when Jack hailed the deck again.

"Well," said the captain.

"I think she is bound for the _Springbok."_

The soldier received this conjecture with astonishment and incredulity,
not to be wondered at. The steamboat headed N.W.; right in the wind's
eye. Sixteen miles off, at least, a ship was sailing N.E. So that the two
courses might be represented thus:

\ /
\ /
A \ / B

And there hung in the air, like a b