“Too few stars, and too much wind.  The breeze continually changes its direction and blows inshore; thence it rises perpendicularly.  This results from the land being warmer than the water.  Its atmosphere is lighter.  The cold and dense wind of the sea rushes in to replace it.  From this cause, in the upper regions the wind blows towards the land from every quarter.  It would be advisable to make long tacks between the true and apparent parallel.  When the latitude by observation differs from the latitude by dead reckoning by not more than three minutes in thirty miles, or by four minutes in sixty miles, you are in the true course.”

The skipper bowed, but the old man saw him not.  The latter, who wore what resembled an Oxford or Gottingen university gown, did not relax his haughty and rigid attitude.  He observed the waters as a critic of waves and of men.  He studied the billows, but almost as if he was about to demand his turn to speak amidst their turmoil, and teach them something.  There was in him both pedagogue and soothsayer.  He seemed an oracle of the deep.

He continued his soliloquy, which was perhaps intended to be heard.

“We might strive if we had a wheel instead of a helm.  With a speed of twelve miles an hour, a force of twenty pounds exerted on the wheel produces three hundred thousand pounds’ effect on the course.  And more too.  For in some cases, with a double block and runner, they can get two more revolutions.”

The skipper bowed a second time, and said, “My lord!”

The old man’s eye rested on him; he had turned his head without moving his body.

“Call me Doctor.”

“Master Doctor, I am the skipper.”

“Just so,” said the doctor.

The doctor, as henceforward we shall call him, appeared willing to converse.

“Skipper, have you an English sextant?”

“No.”

“Without an English sextant you cannot take an altitude at all.”

“The Basques,” replied the captain, “took altitudes before there were any English.”

“Be careful you are not taken aback.”

“I keep her away when necessary.”

“Have you tried how many knots she is running?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Just now.”

“How?”

“By the log.”

“Did you take the trouble to look at the triangle?”

“Yes.”

“Did the sand run through the glass in exactly thirty seconds?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure that the sand has not worn the hole between the globes?”

“Yes.”

“Have you proved the sand-glass by the oscillations of a bullet?”

“Suspended by a rope yarn drawn out from the top of a coil of soaked hemp?  Undoubtedly.”

“Have you waxed the yarn lest it should stretch?”

“Yes.”

“Have you tested the log?”

“I tested the sand-glass by the bullet, and checked the log by a round shot.”