here he kept
the lately purchased map.

The easterly gale, however, did not last, for the wind came out of the
west and north, and sank to foggy calms when it did not blow wickedly
hard. This meant that the _Selache's_ course was all to windward, and
though they drove her at it unmercifully under reefed boom-foresail,
main trysail, and a streaming jib or two, with the brine going over her
solid forward, she had made little when each arduous day was done.
They were drenched to the skin continuously, and lashed by stinging
spray. Cooking except of the crudest kind was out of the question, and
sleep would have been impossible to any but worn-out sailormen. Even
then, they were often roused in the blackness of the night, when she
lay with her lee rail under, and would not lift it out, to get another
reef in, or crawl out on plunging bowsprit washed by icy seas to haul a
burst jib down. It was even more trying, glad as they were of the
respite in some respects, to lie rolling wildly on the big smooth
undulations that hove out of the windless calm, while everything in her
banged to and fro, and when the breeze came screaming through the fog
or rain they sprang to make sail again.

Fate seemed dead against them, as it was certain that, if their purpose
was suspected, the hand of every white man they might come across would
be; but they held on over leagues of empty ocean while the season wore
away, until once more the wind freshened easterly, and they ran for a
week under boom-foresail and a jib, with the big grey combers curling
as they foamed by high above her rail. Then the wind fell, and
Dampier, who got an observation, armed his deep-sea lead, and finding
shells and shoal water came aft to talk to Wyllard with the strip of
Dunton's chart.

Wyllard, who was clad in oilskins, stood, a shapeless figure, by the
wheel, with his face darkened and roughened by cold and stinging brine.
There was an open sore upon one of his elbows, and both his wrists were
raw. Forward, a white man and two Siwash were standing about the
windlass, and when the bows went up a dreary stretch of slate-grey sea
opened up beyond them beneath the dripping jibs. Then the bows would
go down again, and all that was visible was the fore-shortened slope of
deck and the breast of the big undulation that hove itself up ahead.
The _Selache_ was carrying everything and lurching over the steep swell
at some four knots an hour.

Dampier stopped near th