"Well, I make it that we're just about 33 degrees 10 minutes North, and 41 degrees West longitude. What do you think of that, eh?" "Never!" exclaimed the first mate. "But, it's true enough," returned Captain Miles. "I assure you I've tested my reckoning in every way, those star altitudes enabling me to correct my lunars. Yes, Marline, you see we did not lose so much by carrying on to the north as you fancied we would; and this blustering north-wester has now taken us almost eight hundred miles in the very direction we wanted to go. If we had lain to, as you wanted at first, we should now have been considerably to the southward of our position, and would probably have had to beat up northwards again; whereas now, as soon as the gale is blown out, we'll be right in the trades for home." "And won't we touch the Gulf Stream, then?" I asked. "No, my boy, thank goodness, we're a long way from that; but if you're anxious to see the Gulf-weed I told you about, we're now in its native home, a region called the Sargasso Sea." "The Sargasso Sea!" I repeated. "I never heard of that before." "No, I don't suppose you have," replied Captain Miles in answer to my implied question. "It is a name applied to a calm expanse of the ocean between the Gulf Stream and the Equatorial Current, and is called so from the _Sargassum_, or Gulf-weed, which is continually found floating there--that is, when the wind is not too strong, as now, to blow it elsewhere. You'll see plenty of the stuff as soon as the gale lulls, which it must do now, I think, in a very few hours." "Are you going to carry on still before it, sir?" asked Mr Marline. "Of course," answered the captain. "The ship is sailing easily and not straining herself, as she would do if lying-to; and we can't run into any harm following the same course till morning. I intend to work the gale in the same way as a friend of mine once treated a runaway horse. It first started off to please itself, and then he made it keep up its pace to please him; so, as the wind has chosen to blow us along at its own sweet will all this time, it shall now drive the ship at my pleasure. What do you say, Master Tom, eh?" "I say it's a very good plan, captain," I replied laughing. "Well, my boy, I'll tell you of another good plan, and that is to go below and turn in, as I purpose doing. Mr Marline," added the captain to the first mate, "please take the first watch. I'll relieve you at midnight; I don't think there'll be any change before then." With these words, Captain Miles, who had been on deck almost continuously now for two days and nights, went down to the cabin to have a couple of hours of much-needed repose; and taking his hint as an order, good-humouredly as it was spoken, I followed him at once.