"Yes, you'll have to whistle for the wind, Jack," said the doctor, stretching himself under the awning and lighting his cigar. "Whistle for nonsense!" said the lad irritably. "So tiresome, just too as we have come in sight of the place." "Practice for your patience, my boy," said Sir John merrily. "Oughtn't he to come under the awning out of the scorching sun?" he continued to the doctor, as Jack went forward to where Captain Bradleigh was giving orders about lowering some of the studding-sails. "Won't hurt him so long as he does not exert himself," replied the doctor. "The sun, sir, is the real fount of life. Nature incites all animals to bask in it, even the fish. There's a shoal swimming yonder. We'll have a try for some presently. Do him good." "Then why don't you go and lie in it?" said Sir John, smiling. "Because I don't want doing good. Too idle. I'm drinking all this in. I never felt so well in my life." "Nor I," said Sir John, watching his son's movements, "but I begin to feel as if I should like to be doing something active. What's Jack about?" The answer came in the boy's voice, heard distinctly enough in the clear air,-- "I say, don't take the sails down, Captain Bradleigh," he said; "the wind may come again soon." "Not before sundown," replied the captain, "and then we shan't want stuns'ls." "But it might!" "Yes, and it might come with a sudden touch of hurricane, my lad. We're getting where dangers lie pretty quickly, and we old sea-going folk don't like to be taken unawares." "What would it do then if a touch of hurricane did come?" "Perhaps take our masts short off by the board before we could let everything go. Not nice to have half our canvas stripped away. You haven't been at sea so long as I have, squire." "No, of course not," said Jack impatiently. "But I say, why don't you get up steam?" "Because we want to keep our coal for an emergency, or when we want to get on." "Well, we want to get on now." The captain smiled. "Go and ask your father what he thinks." "Yes; come with me." The captain humoured him, and they walked aft to where the awning cast its grateful shade. "Here, father, hadn't we better have the steam up and get on?" "I hardly think so, Jack. What do you say, captain; will the calm last?" "Only till sundown, sir; then I think we shall have a nice soft breeze again." "Then I say no, Jack," said Sir John. "We're quite hot enough, and it does not seem fair to the men to send them down making roaring fires when there is so little need." "You'd be getting brown on both sides at once, Jack," said the doctor. "Look yonder; fish rising. What do you say to having a try?" "Yes," said Jack eagerly, "let's get up the lines. Hi, Mr Bartlett, come on." The mate had taken the captain's place, and was superintending the lowering of the studding-sails.