'Then, I mistook. I supposed when Captain Barrington talked of limiting us to time that he intended we should return to him here,' said Captain Parry. The young mate smiled. 'His notion in limiting us to time,' said he, 'was that we should not run the quest into a hopeless job. There should be a limit.' 'Of course, a reasonable limit,' said Parry. 'What is it?' 'It has been left to my judgment, sir; and I am willing to be governed by you.' 'Thanks, Blundell!' Captain Parry, pronouncing this sentence with warmth and emotion, stepped to the binnacle and looked at the card. 'You are holding the schooner north-west,' said he. 'You have a reason?' 'We must head her on one course or another,' answered Blundell. 'I propose, with your leave, to carry out Captain Barrington's ideas. He has sketched me a circular course. I'll compass it off on the chart below presently, and you shall form your own opinion. Loose the square canvas, my lads!' he sang out, abruptly breaking from Captain Parry. The captain lent a hand to pull and haul; he dragged to the music of the salt-throats at the sheets and halliards. The breeze freshened in a steady gushing. The ocean was a miracle of laughing light. Already you heard the snore of foam at the cutwater, and the stealthy hiss of its passage aft. The _Alfred_ was growing small and square in the blue distance. She was feeling the breeze now, and her pale and shapely shadow leaned as she headed, with an occasional dim flash from her wet, black side, into the far northern recess. Captain Parry went below, and returned on deck with the binocular which he had observed in Mr. Vanderholt's cabin. The main rigging of the _Mowbray_ was rattled down to the height of the lower masthead. The captain got into the shrouds, and made his way to the crosstrees. Higher, being no sailor, he durst not crawl. With one hand he grasped a topmast shroud that was sweating tar; with the other he lifted the glasses, and searched the sea till his eyes swelled and throbbed in their sockets. When he descended he said to the mate: 'I have wondered why the men should have left the schooner afloat. Don't they usually scuttle vessels in affairs of this sort?' 'I heard the captain and the second officer talk this matter over,' said Mr. Blundell. 'The second mate thought that the villains knew what they were about when they left the schooner floating. She would be met with, and boarded. They'd find nothing to give them an idea of what had happened. So she'd be carried away to a port as a mystery, and that would be giving the men a better chance than had they scuttled her.' 'Why?'