Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/341

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN to him. "They don't go meandering all over the ocean. If they are bound for any particular place, they go there on the shortest safe line they can lay down on the map. We can go on that line, too, although we may be thrown out of it by storms. But we can strike it again, and then all we have to do is to keep on it as straight as we can, and we are bound to over take another vessel on the same course, provided we sail faster than she does. It is all plain enough, don't you see?"

Nunez could not help seeing, but he was a little cross, nevertheless. The map and the ocean were wonderfully different.

The wind had changed, and the Arato did not make very good sailing on her southeastern course. High as was her captain's opinion of her, she never had sailed, nor ever could sail, two miles to the Miranda's one, although she was a good deal faster than the brig. But she was fairly well handled, and in due course of time she approached so near the coast that her look out sighted land, which land Cardatas, consulting his chart, concluded must be one of the Patagonian islands to the north of the Gulf of Penas.

As night came on, Cardatas determined to change his course somewhat to the south, as he did not care to trust himself too near the coast, when suddenly the lookout reported a light on the port bow. Cardatas had sailed down this coast before, but he had never heard of a lighthouse in the region, and with his glass he watched the light. But he could not make it out. It was a strange light, for sometimes it was bright and sometimes dull, then it would increase greatly and almost fade away again. 327