"Ay," answered I, "up to a certain point they are. But reach down your chart, and produce your parallel ruler and dividers, my hearty; I want to get some sort of notion of what is ahead of us." "What, are you frightened too, then?" demanded Maxwell, as he pushed away his books and reached up for the chart. "No, certainly not," answered I. "But it is indisputable that the ship is embayed on a lee-shore, and that it is blowing a whole gale of wind. If, therefore, there is a prospect of our being obliged to swim for our lives presently, I should like to know it." "Oh, hang it all, man, it surely is not nearly so bad as that, is it?" demanded the mate, as he spread the chart out on the table. "Oh, isn't it?" retorted Gascoigne, another midshipman, who had just come below in time to hear the tail-end of my remark and Maxwell's reply to it. "It is evident that you have not been on deck within the last hour, or you wouldn't say that. Why, man alive, if you would just pull yourself together enough to become conscious of the antics of the hooker you would understand that she is being driven as no ship ought to be driven without good and sufficient cause. There,"--as the frigate plunged dizzily, rolling at the same moment almost over on her beam-ends and quivering violently throughout her whole fabric at the shock of the sea that had struck her, while plates, pannikins, cups and saucers, knives and forks, books, candles, and a heterogeneous assortment of sundries flew from the racks and shelves with a clattering crash, and constituted a very pretty "general average" on the deck--"what d'ye think of that, my noble knight of the sextant?" "You just gather up that wreckage, my son, and put the unbroken things back into their places," exclaimed Maxwell. "Also, clap a stopper upon your jawing tackle, younker; you have altogether too much too say, for a little 'un. Here, you Fleming--" to another mid, who was lying upon a locker with his hands clasped under his head by way of a pillow--"rouse and bitt, my hearty, and make yourself useful for once in a way; grab the corners of this chart and hold them down to the table until I give you a spell. That's it. Now then, Delamere, what is it that you want to know?" "First of all," I said, "prick off the ship's position as it was a quarter of an hour ago. There is Point du Raz. Very well: when I came below it bore exactly North 3 quarters East by compass, distant, say, seven miles. Mark off that bearing and distance, to start with." Maxwell did so, making a little dot with his pencil on the chart. "There you are," he said. "Now, what next?" "The ship was heading North-North-West," I said. "What I want to know is, Are we going to weather that point; and, if so, what lies beyond it?"