Now, whether this said land just made out on the north-east, trended away back to south-east, as the clearer look of the horizon to starboard made one think, it was hard to say--though in _that_ way of it, there were _seemingly_ two plans for widening her distance. Either Finch might think it better to keep hold of a fair wind, and just edge her off enough to drop the point on her weather quarter--when, of course, if things stood as they were, we should soon set a good stretch of water betwixt us and the coast; or else they might brace direct round on the other tack, and head right south-west'ard, out to sea again: though if we were still _in_ it, the current would set us every bit as much in its own direction as ever. Accordingly I sidled nearer to the capstan, and watched anxiously for what the third mate had to propose, after humming and hawing a little, and scratching his head under his cap for half a minute. "At any rate, Mr Finch, sir," said he, "more especially the captain being off charge, I may say, why, I'd advise ye, sir, to ----." Here he dropped his voice; but Finch apparently agreed to what he said. "Ready about ship there!" said the second mate aloud to the boatswain forward; and in ten minutes afterwards the Seringapatam was fairly round, as I had expected, heading at a right angle to her former course, with the breeze before her starboard beam, and the sun blazing on the other. I walked forward to the bows, and actually started to hear how loud and clear the ripple had got under them of a sudden; meeting her with a plash, as if she were making six or seven knots headway, while the canvass seemed to draw so much stiffer aloft, you'd have supposed the breeze had freshened as soon as the helm was put down. The mates looked over the side and aloft, rubbing their hands and smiling to each other, as much as to say how fast she was hauling off the bad neighbourhood she was in, though the heat was as great as ever, and you didn't feel a breath more air below, nor see the water ruffle. To _my_ notion, in fact, it was just the set of the current against her that seemingly freshened her way, the ship being now direct in its teeth; so that, of course, it would keep bearing her up all the time away north-eastward, with her own leeway to help it; and the less could any one notice the difference betwixt the water going past her side, and _her_ passing the water. This tack of hers, which Rickett, no doubt, thought such a safe plan, might be the very one to put her in a really dangerous way yet; for when they did discover this under-tow, how were they to take her out of it, after all? Probably by trying to stand fair across the stream of it to southward, which, without three times the wind we had, would at best take us out many miles nearer the land it set upon, or leave us perhaps becalmed in the midst of it.