sleep my four hours on board of the Maud,
and wake at the right time without being called. But where are we now,
sir?"

"You see the lighthouse ahead; that is in latitude 25 deg. We are now
nearly as far south as the first cataract on the Nile, as far south as
we went in Africa."

"I can understand that better than simple figures," said Mrs. Belgrave.

"But we went a little farther south than that off Cuba," suggested
Louis.

"We shall cross the Tropic of Cancer while we are at luncheon," added
the commander. "You learned at school that this boundary was at
twenty-three and a half degrees north of the equator, and it is
generally so stated, though it is not quite accurate."

"I wish you would explain this at the next conference, Captain Ringgold,
for what you say is a surprise to me," said Louis.

"I will do it in a general way, though I am not an astronomer in the
scientific sense of the word," answered the captain. "We are approaching
the Daedalus lightship. I suppose you remember the name."

"I know that Daedalus was a very ingenious artist of Athens, who planned
the Cretan labyrinth, invented carpentry and some of the tools used in
the trade; but I don't know why his name was given to this lighthouse."

"I cannot inform you why it is so called, if there was any reason for
doing so; very likely it was given to it for no reason at all, as some
of the ships in the British navy are supplied with classical names for
the mere sound of the words, as Agamemnon, Achilles, though with some
reference to the trade of the originals in war."

"Why is it placed here all alone in the middle of this sea?" asked
Louis, who had looked about it for any signs of rocks.

"It is built on a dangerous reef which is never above water, though some
small round black rocks are seen at low tide awash. They look like the
kettles in which cooks get up a boiled dinner; and for this reason the
Arabs call the reef Abu Kizan, which means the 'father of pots.' As you
perceive, the ship is now out of sight of land; for the Red Sea is a
hundred and twenty miles wide at this point. But there is the gong for
breakfast, and we must attend to that."

The usual hour for the conference was nine o'clock when the ship was at
sea. So far the weather was remarkably pleasant; the north-west wind was
very gentle, and the ship hardly pitched at all. At the regular hour the
passengers had assembled on the promenade. The map of Arabia had been
placed on t