While he was engaged in his examination Don joined him. The engineer had slept most of the night, and he had no desire to turn in again. He looked the casks over with the steward, and declared that he could make them as tight as when they were new in fifteen minutes. He went to the engine-room, and returned with a hammer and a piece of iron in his hands. He calked the casks as though he had been a cooper all his life, and then proceeded to drive the hoops. In less than half an hour the job was completed, and Don was sure the casks would not leak a drop. Morris and Louis went aft when they heard the sound of the hammer, and the former reported to the captain what was going on at the stern. Louis examined the casks when they were finished, and tried to penetrate the seams with the blade of his penknife; but they appeared to be perfectly tight. "We have the casks, and all we want now is the water to fill them," said he. "Do you know anything about Alboran, Don?" "I have seen it, but I never went ashore there," replied the second engineer. "I think there must be water there." The captain was at the wheel. Pitts had sounded the water-jar in the cabin, and declared that there was hardly water enough left to enable him to get dinner; and he reported accordingly at the pilot-house. "Alboran is not more than a dozen miles off our course, and we will try there," said Captain Scott, after he had looked the water-question over again. "We have passed Malaga; and the next place on the Spanish coast is Almunecar, but it is thirty-five miles off our course. Then we have no papers; and I am afraid we should be sent into quarantine." The captain changed the course to south-east. CHAPTER XXX THE MAUD INCLINED TO TURN SOMERSETS Among other nautical furniture, Captain Ringgold had put an old-fashioned log-line, chip, reel, and second glass on board of the Maud. Captain Scott had been unable to use it during the mid watch for the want of some one to assist him. After he had changed the course he gave the wheel to Felix, and with the assistance of Morris, Louis, and Don, had heaved the log. It gave him very nearly ten knots an hour; but he was not confident that his work had been accurate. Felipe kept account of the number of revolutions a minute; and he insisted that the Maud was making her ten knots an hour, and the current might make it a trifle more than that. The captain had timed the steamer by distances on the chart, and he was satisfied that the log was substantially correct. "It is now half-past nine, and we have made ninety-five miles from Gib," said he, after he had taken the wheel again. "It would have been thirty-five miles to Alboran if we had kept on our former course; it is less than that now, say about thirty-two. At about eleven o'clock it will be time to be on the lookout for the lighthouse."