The Ebba now has a slight list to port, and her speed is notably increased.  But the motor continues to push her along, as is evident from the fact that the sails are not always as full as they ought to be if the schooner were bowling along solely under their action.  However, they continue to render yeoman’s service, for the breeze has set in steadily.

The sky is clear, for the clouds in the west disappear as soon as they attain the horizon, and the sunlight dances on the water.

My preoccupation now is to find out as near as possible where we are bound for.  I am a good-enough sailor to be able to estimate the approximate speed of a ship.  In my opinion the Ebba has been travelling at the rate of from ten to eleven knots an hour.  As to the direction we have been going in, it is always the same, and I have been able to verify this by casual glances at the binnacle.  If the fore part of the vessel is barred to Warder Gaydon he has been allowed a free run of the remainder of it.  Time and again I have glanced at the compass, and noticed that the needle invariably pointed to the east, or to be exact, east-southeast.

These are the conditions in which we are navigating this part of the Atlantic Ocean, which is bounded on the west by the coast of the United States of America.

I appeal to my memory.  What are the islands or groups of islands to be found in the direction we are going, ere the continent of the Old World is reached?

North Carolina, which the schooner quitted forty-eight hours ago, is traversed by the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude, and this parallel, extending eastward, must, if I mistake not, cut the African coast at Morocco.  But along the line, about three thousand miles from America, are the Azores.  Is it presumable that the Ebba is heading for this archipelago, that the port to which she belongs is somewhere in these islands which constitute one of Portugal’s insular domains?  I cannot admit such an hypothesis.

Besides, before the Azores, on the line of the thirty-fifth parallel, is the Bermuda group, which belongs to England.  It seems to me to be a good deal less hypothetical that, if the Count d’Artigas was entrusted with the abduction of Thomas Roch by a European Power at all, it was by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.  The possibility, however, remains that he may be acting solely in his own interest.

Three or four times during the day Count d’Artigas has come aft and remained for some time scanning the surrounding horizon attentively.  When a sail or the smoke from a steamer heaves in sight he examines the passing vessel for a considerable time with a powerful telescope.  I may add that he has not once condescended to notice my presence on deck.

Now and then Captain Spade joins him and both exchange a few words in a language that I can neither understand nor recognize.