The spar, however, was sent down and replaced by a spare yard which we carried; and everything was all right aloft now. We had lost something in another way, though; for, when Mr Quadrant took the sun at noon, with all of us youngsters standing round him with our sextants, like a parcel of chickens gathered about an old hen, which indeed the master greatly resembled with his shock head of hair and fussy manner, the ship was found to be in latitude 44 degrees 5 minutes north and longitude 7 degrees 50 minutes west. She had been driven to the south-east by the gale, aided by the drift of the current setting in to the Bay of Biscay. This was more than two hundred miles out of our proper track, and far too much to the eastward to be able to weather the northern extremity of the Spanish coast, which would soon be perilously near to us, running as we then were to the sou'-sou'-west. Fortunately for us, though, the wind had now veered to the southward; and, as we were sailing on the port tack, by giving the ship a good deal of weather helm and bracing round the yards, we were able to bear up to the westward out of the ill-omened bay, steering west by south until we were in longitude 11 degrees 10 minutes west and well clear of Cape Finisterre, when we hauled our wind and shaped a course direct for Madeira. This, however, was not until next day; and, I recollect, after we luffed up again and bore to the southward, a lot of talk went on in the gunroom at dinner-time about the probability of our stopping or not at that beautiful island, the gem of the Atlantic. "I say, Jack Vernon," sang out Larkyns to me, across the table, "I suppose you know why it is called Madeira?" "No," I replied. "Why?" "Well," he began, "it is rather a romantic story--" "Then, I shouldn't think it can be much in your line," interrupted Mr Stormcock, who somehow or other was always down upon any chap for ever starting a yarn. "You tell very practical ones; only, instead of the term `story' I would use a shorter and more expressive word." "Say `lie' if you like; I know you mean it," rejoined Larkyns, in no way put out by the rude insinuation and continuing his narrative quite composedly. "But, you're wrong in this case, old Stormy, for `faix it's no lie I'm telling you now,' as the doctor's Irish marine would say. It's the plain, unadulterated truth. I had the tale from a Portuguese monk at Funchal." "Funchal," put in Mr Fortescue Jones, the assistant-paymaster, caressing his whiskers as usual and cocking his eye as if he were going to catch Larkyns tripping. "When were you there?" "In the _Majestic_, when I was a cadet," promptly returned the mid, taking up the cudgels at once. "It was in the same year you were tried by court-martial for breaking your leave!" This was a "settler" for poor Mr Jones.