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"I have no chart,
No compass but a heart,"
quoted I in mischief to Nat. But Nat, having passed through a real
gale, had saved not sufficient fondness for his verse to blush, for
it. We should have been mournful for old Worthyvale, but that night
we knew only that it was good, being young, to have escaped death.
Under the stars we made bad jokes on Mr. Badcock's sea-sickness, and
sang in chorus to Mr. Fett's solos--
"With a fa-la, fa-la, fa-la-la!
To all you ladies now at land . . ."
Next morning Captain Pomery (whose hurt was a pretty severe
concussion of the skull, the explosion having flung him into the
panelling of the ship's cabin, and against the knee of a beam)
returned to duty, and professed himself able, with help, to take a
reckoning. He relieved us of another anxiety by producing a
pocket-compass from his fob.
My father held the sextant for him, while Nat, under instructions,
worked out the sum. With a compass, upon a chart spread on the deck,
I pricked out the bearings--with a result that astonished all as I
leapt up and stared across the bows.


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