“Well, sir, I hope not, for your sake, and the young lady’s; but as far as we are concerned, we would as lief go round the world as anything else, though she is not a very big craft for such a journey as that.”

“How long will the water tanks hold out?”

“That is where the pinch will come in, sir.  I reckon that at ordinary times we might make shift to go on for three weeks without filling up, but, you see, we have twenty hands instead of ten, and that will make all the difference..  I did get ten good-sized casks yesterday morning, and got them filled as well as the tanks.  They are stowed away forward, but they won’t improve her speed.  They have brought her head down over two inches, but, of course, we shall use the water in them first.”

“You had better bring them amidships, captain, and stow them round the saloon skylight.  Appearances are of no consequence whatever, and the great thing is to get her in her best sailing trim.  If bad weather comes on, we must put half in the bow and half in the stern, where we can wedge them in tightly together.  It would not do to risk having them rolling about the decks.

“Well, then,” he went on, seeing that the captain did not like the thought of having weight at each end of the yacht, “if the weather gets bad we will take the saloon skylight off, and lower them down into it.  I can eat my meals on deck or in my stateroom, but the water we must keep.  If we get a spell of head winds or calms, we may be three weeks getting to Gib.”

“That would be a very good plan, sir, if you can do without the saloon, and don’t mind its being littered up.”

“Well, I hope we shan’t get any bad weather until we get well across the bay, Hawkins.  I don’t mind the discomfort, but it would stop her speed.  We want a wind that will just let us carry all our canvas.  We can travel a deal faster so than we can in heavy weather, when we might be obliged to get down the greater part of our canvas and perhaps to lie to.

“It looks like a strong crew, doesn’t it?” he went on, as he glanced forward.

“That it does, sir.  A craft of this size can do well with more when she is racing, but for a crew it is more than one wants, a good deal; and people would stare if we went into an English port.  Still, I don’t say that it is not an advantage to be strong-handed if we get heavy weather, and it makes light work of getting up sail or shifting it, and one wants to shift pretty often when he is trying to get high speed out of a craft.”

The wind continued fitful, and, in spite of having her racing sails, the Osprey’s run to the Start was a long one.  It was not until thirty-six hours after getting up anchor that they were abreast of the lighthouse.

“I try to be patient, George,” Mallett said, “but it is enough to make a saint swear.  We have lost eight or ten hours instead of making a gain, although we had the advantage of coming through the Needles passage, while they had to go round at the back of the island to escape observation.”