The skipper then offered to sell some fresh fish, just out of the water. Louis gave him four Spanish _pesetas_; and for it he put fish enough on the deck of the Maud to feed the whole ship's company for three days. He was evidently feeling very good after the unexpected trade he had made, and perhaps had more money in his pocket than for six months before; and he was profuse in his compliments and his thanks. The Maud cast off her fasts, and Morris rang one bell, which was speedily followed by the jingling of the speed bell. The captain dropped his broad shelf in the pilot-house till it became a table on which he spread out his chart. Applying his parallel rule, he took off the course from Alboran light to his point ten miles off Algiers. "East a half south, Morris," said he when he had obtained the course. "East a half south, sir," repeated the helmsman, after the manner it was done on board the Blanche and the Guardian-Mother. "While you were dickering for water, Captain Scott, I noticed a change, a drop, in the barometer. Did you observe it?" "No; but I noticed that the wind was backing," replied Scott, rushing to the barometer, which was suspended by the side of the starboard door. "That felucca is going west, and she has the wind on her port beam. "What do you mean by backing, Captain?" asked Louis, who was standing at the door of the pilot-house. "When a west wind shifts against the sun, or works round towards the east through the south-west and south, sailors call it backing," replied the captain, who was as fond as the average young fellow of telling what he knew. "I have heard old farmers talk about the wind backing round, and I knew that it was towards the south when it did this thing; but I did not know that the sun had anything to do with it," added Louis. "The sun moves from east to west, as it must if it rises in the east. From east to south would be _with_ the sun; but from west to south and to east would be _against_ the sun," continued the captain. "That's so," added Morris; "and there is a couplet about it:-- 'When the wind shifts against the sun, Trust it not, for back it will run.'" "The barometer has dropped, and I see that the felucca has all the breeze she can take care of," said Scott, as he looked at the Spanish craft. "The wind is backing to the southward; and before night we shall know what sort of a sea-boat the Maud is." "Dinner is all ready, Captain Scott," Pitts announced at the port door. "That means the captain and Flix," added Scott, "for they are off watch just now. Here, Pitts, we must have the meal hours fixed a little differently. It is half-past twelve now, and the watch ought to dine before they come on duty." "That would make the dinner hour come at half-past eleven, sir," replied the steward, "and the other meals at very odd times, sir."