“But vessels sail in regular courses,” Cardatas said to him.  “They don’t go meandering all over the ocean.  If they are bound for any particular place, they go there on the shortest safe line they can lay down on the map.  We can go on that line, too, although we may be thrown out of it by storms.  But we can strike it again, and then all we have to do is to keep on it as straight as we can, and we are bound to overtake another vessel on the same course, provided we sail faster than she does.  It is all plain enough, don’t you see?”

Nunez could not help seeing, but he was a little cross, nevertheless.  The map and the ocean were wonderfully different.

The wind had changed, and the Arato did not make very good sailing on her southeastern course.  High as was her captain’s opinion of her, she never had sailed, nor ever could sail, two miles to the Miranda’s one, although she was a good deal faster than the brig.  But she was fairly well handled, and in due course of time she approached so near the coast that her lookout sighted land, which land Cardatas, consulting his chart, concluded must be one of the Patagonian islands to the north of the Gulf of Penas.

As night came on, Cardatas determined to change his course somewhat to the south, as he did not care to trust himself too near the coast, when suddenly the lookout reported a light on the port bow.  Cardatas had sailed down this coast before, but he had never heard of a lighthouse in the region, and with his glass he watched the light.  But he could not make it out.  It was a strange light, for sometimes it was bright and sometimes dull, then it would increase greatly and almost fade away again.

“It looks like a fire on shore,” said he, and some of the other men who took the glass agreed with him.

“And what does that mean?” asked Nunez.

“I don’t know,” replied Cardatas, curtly.  “How should I?  But one thing I do know, and that is that I shall lie to until morning, and then we can feel our way near to the coast and see what it does mean.”

“But what do you want to know for?” asked Nunez.  “I suppose somebody on shore has built a fire.  Is there any good stopping for that?  We have lost a lot of time already.”

“I am going to lie to, anyway,” said Cardatas.  “When we are on such business as ours, we should not pass anything without understanding it.”

Cardatas had always supposed that these islands were uninhabited, and he could not see why anybody should be on one of them making a fire, unless it were a case of shipwreck.  If a ship had been wrecked, it was not at all impossible that the Miranda might be the unfortunate vessel.  In any case, it would be wise to lie to, and look into the matter by daylight.  If the Miranda had gone down at sea, and her crew had reached land in boats, the success of the Arato’s voyage would be very dubious.  And should this misfortune have happened, he must be careful about Nunez when he came to hear of it.  When he turned into his hammock that night, Cardatas had made up his mind that, if he should discover that the Miranda had gone to the bottom, it would be a very good thing if arrangements could be made for Nunez to follow her.