"I never wanted to marry a sailor," she said. "And I thought I was safe
in the hands of a landsman like you. And yet here you are, with all the
stuff of the sea in you, running down your easting for port. Next thing,
I suppose, I'll see you out with a sextant, shooting the sun or making
star-observations."

CHAPTER XLVI

Four more days have passed; the gale has blown itself out; we are not
more than three hundred and fifty miles off Valparaiso; and the
_Elsinore_, this time due to me and my own stubbornness, is rolling in
the wind and heading nowhere in a light breeze at the rate of nothing but
driftage per hour.

In the height of the gusts, in the three days and nights of the gale, we
logged as much as eight, and even nine, knots. What bothered me was the
acquiescence of the mutineers in my programme. They were sensible enough
in the simple matter of geography to know what I was doing. They had
control of the sails, and yet they permitted me to run for the South
American coast.

More than that, as the gale eased on the morning of the third day, they
actually went aloft, set top-gallant-sails, royals, and skysails, and
trimmed the yards to the quartering breeze. This was too much for the
Saxon streak in me, whereupon I wore the _Elsinore_ about before the
wind, fetched her up upon it, and lashed the wheel. Margaret and I are
agreed in the hypothesis that their plan is to get inshore until land is
sighted, at which time they will desert in the boats.

"But we don't want them to desert," she proclaims with flashing eyes. "We
are bound for Seattle. They must return to duty. They've got to, soon,
for they are beginning to starve."

"There isn't a navigator aft," I oppose.

Promptly she withers me with her scorn.

"You, a master of books, by all the sea-blood in your body should be able
to pick up the theoretics of navigation while I snap my fingers.
Furthermore, remember that I can supply the seamanship. Why, any
squarehead peasant, in a six months' cramming course at any seaport
navigation school, can pass the examiners for his navigator's papers.
That means six hours for you. And less. If you can't, after an hour's
reading and an hour's practice with the sextant, take a latitude
observation and work it out, I'll do it for you."

"You mean you know?"

She shook her head.

"I mean, from the little I know, that I know I can learn to know a
meridian sight and the working out of it. I m