onished at the fact that a vessel without either screw or
sails was going along at such a speed. However this may be, for some
reason or other, the bows of the _Ebba_ are barred to me.

Toward ten o'clock a breeze springs up--a northwest wind and very
favorable--and Captain Spade gives an order to the boatswain. The
latter immediately pipes all hands on deck, and the mainsail, the
foresail, staysail and jibs are hoisted. The work could not have been
executed with greater regularity and discipline on board a man-of-war.

The _Ebba_ now has a slight list to port, and her speed is notably
increased. But the motor continues to push her along, as is evident
from the fact that the sails are not always as full as they ought
to be if the schooner were bowling along solely under their action.
However, they continue to render yeoman's service, for the breeze has
set in steadily.

The sky is clear, for the clouds in the west disappear as soon as they
attain the horizon, and the sunlight dances on the water.

My preoccupation now is to find out as near as possible where we
are bound for. I am a good-enough sailor to be able to estimate
the approximate speed of a ship. In my opinion the _Ebba_ has been
travelling at the rate of from ten to eleven knots an hour. As to the
direction we have been going in, it is always the same, and I have
been able to verify this by casual glances at the binnacle. If the
fore part of the vessel is barred to Warder Gaydon he has been allowed
a free run of the remainder of it. Time and again I have glanced at
the compass, and noticed that the needle invariably pointed to the
east, or to be exact, east-southeast.

These are the conditions in which we are navigating this part of the
Atlantic Ocean, which is bounded on the west by the coast of the
United States of America.

I appeal to my memory. What are the islands or groups of islands to
be found in the direction we are going, ere the continent of the Old
World is reached?

North Carolina, which the schooner quitted forty-eight hours ago, is
traversed by the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude, and this parallel,
extending eastward, must, if I mistake not, cut the African coast at
Morocco. But along the line, about three thousand miles from America,
are the Azores. Is it presumable that the _Ebba_ is heading for this
archipelago, that the port to which she belongs is somewhere in these
islands which constitute one of Portugal's insular domains? I