Some three weeks after the morning when the Merle left the Island, Jack and Tab were sitting in the saloon, working out the sights they had just taken for longitude. It was shortly after eight o'clock in the morning; the air was warm, and had in it a suggestion of the south. Through the open skylight came a shaft of light which cast a brilliant patch on the green cushions on the port side of the cabin. As the yacht rolled or pitched easily over the long seas, the patch of light moved about,—up, down, fore, aft; now it glanced on the rich red sheathing, now on the transom, and again on the big table.

On the leeward side of this table the two men, dressed in canvas trousers and blue flannel shirts, were seated with their work lying before them. Between them lay several sheets of paper, parallel-rulers, the log-book in its brown duck cover, a copy of Norie open at the tables, and the American "Ephemeris." A large sheet-chart of the North Atlantic, weighted with a pair of binoculars, was spread in front of Jack. A heavy line, full of zigzags and acute angles, and running nearly across this chart, represented the Merle's track. Presently Jack laid down the pencil with which he had been figuring, and reaching out for the "Epitome," turned to the table of functions.

"Through?" asked Tab, without looking up.

"'Most," returned Jack, running one finger down a column of figures as he glanced first at his paper and then at the book. "I have it now," he added, and after jotting down a number he pushed the volume over to Tab, went to a cupboard on the port side, and brought back a case of instruments. He took out a pair of long-legged dividers, and with these and the parallel rulers he bent over the chart a minute or two, until the silence was again broken by Jerry.

"What d' you get?" he asked.

"Nine-eighteen-fifteen," replied Jack. "What's yours?"

"Nine-sixteen-nought," answered Tab. "Wait a shake, I'll average them;" and he fell to figuring rapidly. "Mean is nine-seventeen-seven plus. Prick it off, and let's see where we're at—the D. R. latitude's thirty-six forty-eight."

They bent together over the chart. Jack carefully manipulated rulers and dividers, found the point, and marked it in red ink.

"She's making just over six knots now," he said. "We ought to make old Cape St. Vincent shortly. Let's put up these traps and go on deck."

They stowed the things in their several lockers, and went out together. The Merle was running along with a quartering breeze, under all lower sails, sliding easily over the long swell on the port tack.

"How about putting a lookout up aloft, Jack?" asked Tab. "We'll be raising the land pretty soon—if we're anywhere right in our reckoning, that is."

"All right," agreed Jack. "Step down and get a pair of glasses; I fancy Hunter has the best eyes of any of the men. I'll get hold of him."

Jerry disappeared below, and Jack walked along the windward side. The sea, rolling eastward in long, measured swells, reflected the sun from a myriad of glancing ripples that gleamed and glittered in the morning light. The sky, light blue and cloudless, looked like pale fire. On board the schooner the brass-work, as she rose and dipped in the troughs of the long seas, flashed and shone like burnished gold. The white canvas caught the sunshine, while on the decks, still undried from their recent scrubbing, the putty in the curving seams showed sharply white. The four boats were inboard, turned bottom up and cross-lashed to the rail.

Castleport found the four men of the watch gathered in the peak, looking over the bows. He came up and saw that they were watching a school of dolphins that were keeping ahead of the yacht. The big fish seemed to vibrate. They sounded and leaped clear of the water, flashing and dripping with sparkling drops. A thousand colors rippled along their backs, as they turned and swayed, and they swung ahead like the very incarnation of frolic.

The captain saw the man he wanted standing on the port side, and called him to him.

"Hunter," he said, "go aft to Mr. Taberman; he'll give you a pair of glasses. Go aloft and keep a sharp lookout for land. We ought to raise it on the port bow."

The effect produced by this order was electrical. The four men whipped around and stared at Jack and at each other.

"Land!" exclaimed one with a foolish grin. "Land!"

Hunter touched his duck hat and flew aft; Jack followed more leisurely. In a couple of minutes Hunter was ensconced in the foretop, eagerly scanning the eastern horizon. Castleport settled himself in the sun on the leeward side of the cockpit, and filled his pipe. He had hardly lighted it and taken half a dozen whiffs, when from aloft rang out the magical cry, "Land!"

"Where away?" shouted the captain, leaping to his feet just as Tab appeared in the companion-way.

"Have we raised it, Jack? Have we raised it?" Tab demanded excitedly.

"Not yet, Tab. Just been sighted," returned Jack, peering up at the fore-crosstrees, and awaiting the lookout's answer to his hail.

"'Bout two points off the weather-bow," sang out Hunter from aloft. "Just a low bank. Looks like cliffs through glasses!"

"Come along, Tab!" cried Jack. "Let's go aloft and have a look at it."

They made their way quickly along the deck, gained the weather-shrouds, and ran up. The watch below had turned out, just as they were, half-dressed and bareheaded. Two of the men had run out to the bowsprit's end, and holding on to the topmast stay were looking over the luff of the flying-jib. Old Gonzague, venerable as Vanderdecken, his white hair stirred by the wind,—for he was as usual without a cap,—had already gained the main-trees, where he stood shading his eyes with one hand while he gripped the shrouds with the other.

"Where is it?" demanded Jerry, when he and Jack had reached the trees.

"There away, sir," Hunter answered, pointing as he passed the glasses to the captain.

With the unaided eye Jack and Jerry could discern, lying low on the eastern rim of the horizon, a faint brownish streak. With one arm about the topmast for support, Jack looked at the land through the glasses. At first, owing to the oscillation of the mast, he could not keep the brown streak in the field of vision, but in a moment he overcame this difficulty, and was able to make out a length of cliff of nearly uniform height, although split by numerous fjord-like bays. By its varied color—for he could see that the ribbon of shore was splashed with reds and blues—he decided that the land-fall was in the neighborhood of Cape St. Vincent.

"Have a look?" he asked, passing the glasses to Tab. "It's the Painted Cape, fast enough,—or close to it."

"What country is that, please, sir?" asked Hunter, in a tone almost of awe.

"Portugal," the captain answered. "Sou'-western point of the land. We'll have Spain aboard before eight bells this afternoon."

"By Grab, sir! Beg pardon, sir, but do them Portigee fishermen ye see to Boothbay an' Boston, do they come from hereaway?"

"Here or from the islands,—Cape Verde, the Canaries, or the Azores; here for the most part. You may go below, if you want, Hunter."

The man went, frequently pausing to look over his shoulder at the coast, glimpses of which could now be caught from the deck between the rolls.

After a brief consultation, the captain and the mate followed Hunter, and went aft to consult the chart. As they passed along the deck, they noted that all hands were much excited. These men, used as they were to the sea, had been fishermen of the purely local sort, and it was doubtful if any one of them save Gonzague had ever before been out of sight of the high land of his native place; and here they were, in view of a strange country where the people spoke outlandish jabber, and, for all they knew to the contrary, went about in toggery as ridiculous as that of the Chinese laundrymen at Green's Landing. Discussion became all the more heated when Hunter came down and told them that the land was one of the countless possessions belonging to the "Portigee king." Frequent appeals were made to Gonzague, who had descended, and was the centre of an excited group. As Tab remarked, it was a sight worth remembering to see these self-contained New Englanders in such a state.

Down below, Jack and Tab held a brief colloquy over the chart. They calculated, if the wind held, to make the Straits at nightfall, and run through by the aid of the lights on Cape Spartel and Tariffa. Having settled this point, they went on deck and had the course changed slightly.

"By Jumbo!" cried Jerry, banging his fist on the deck as he stood in the cockpit, "by Jumbo, I can't sleep a wink with this land in sight. Portugal, too! By Jove, it's all very fine," he ran on, "for a blasÉ old globe-trotter like you to keep cool, but I'm fair dry with it all."

Jack laughed, and reminded his friend of having lived in England and France, and of having traveled not a little in northern Europe.

"Pooh!" sniffed Tab. "That's not really doing anything; everybody does that. And to think," he burst out, "that we brought ourselves! God bless me, Jacko, I little thought when you crammed me with navigation in vacation days aboard the old Luna that I'd ever use it all; really, that is, as we have used it these three weeks past."

"Well, I hope you're duly grateful," laughed Jack. "It may prove a source of bread and butter if you're ever stranded."

All that day the Merle ran along gallantly over the bright seas, occasionally passing ships of different nationalities bound in or out of the Straits. At sundown, although the bold coast of Morocco was not yet in sight, a lookout was sent aloft to watch for the light on Cape Spartel.

At a little before nine o'clock in the evening, the breeze had so died down that the yacht hardly had steerage-way. Jack was asleep below; Tab had charge of the deck. What air there was was soft and warm. It had hauled around a couple of points against the sun, and was now fragrant with a faint tellurian odor, which would have been imperceptible to a landsman, but which was full of meaning to those who follow the sea. Overhead the great stars blazed in lustrous serenity. Their images kept appearing and vanishing on the now smooth and oily surface of the restless sea. The only sounds were those of the water and the cordage,—the sudden spanking of a big wave under the counter as the yacht flung her nose starward; the occasional crashing of the great booms and traveler-blocks as she righted suddenly after a heavy roll to port or a lurch to starboard; the pattering of the reef-points against the canvas; and the sharp reports made by the slatting of the lazy-jacks against the sails.

In the west, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, the receding stern-light of an Italian steamship glimmered faintly. Taberman watched it long after it kept sinking out of sight and again rising in the weltering seas, and until it at last vanished as if quenched. He was following out certain grim speculations as to the feelings of a forsaken swimmer who should watch this star of his hope moving relentlessly away into the west, grower fainter each time it emerged from the waves, when—

"Light ho!" shouted the lookout from the darkness aloft. "There's—light; 'bout—point—off—starb'd—bow!"

"What kind?" hailed Jerry from the deck, straining his eyes to where, a dim blot against the stars, the figure of the lookout could be discerned standing by the rigging on the cross-trees.

"Fixed white, red flash," called the man.

"All right," shouted Jerry; and added in his ordinary tone of command to the hands on deck: "Lay along, now! Trim in main-sheet a bit—well enough. Now then, fore and head sheets. Good. That'll do.—We want to get what air there is," he added to himself.

Although the wind was slight, yet about the Straits is always a strongish set of current. The surface current flows into the Mediterranean continuously, and it kept setting the Merle steadily ahead. When Taberman judged the light to be no more than five or six knots away, he sent below to rouse the captain, who was asleep. When Castleport came on deck, the bearing of the light was taken, the chart consulted, and a slight change made in the course. It was now calm, and the yacht, no longer steadied by the wind, rolled heavily.

"We ought to see it air up before long," remarked Jack, after a short silence. "It's so beastly calm now. When it's calm on one side of the Straits, it's always blowing on the other. An Italian sea captain told me there is always just so much air about here, and however much or little is on one side, the balance is always kicking about on the other."

"Then we'll take the sticks out of her, once we're through the Straits," Jerry responded with conviction.

As the schooner entered the Straits, the blue-black sky to the eastward became dimly albescent, and shortly a blood-red moon rose slowly behind the inky mass of Monkey Mountain. The huge pile of rock, the more impressive though the less famous of the Pillars of Hercules, loomed vast, mysterious, and perdurable in the soft darkness. The waves, as the face of the moon cleared, were lit with a gray light.

Suddenly, as a long, smooth swell shouldered the yacht past the edge of a small promontory, they opened out the lights of Tangiers on the starboard beam. The moon as yet illuminated only the western half of the scarped bowl in which lie the little villas which surround the town. The scattered lights on the east side of the valley were accentuated by the surrounding gloom.

"There's Tangiers," cried Jack. "There's old Tangiers."

"Those lights?" asked Jerry. "What sort of a place is it?"

"Jolly little hole. All white and pink in the daytime, with red tile roofs. Hot as Tophet, though. There's Tariffa, boy! That's Tariffa over there."

They excitedly discussed the points along their way. To Jerry it was all new, but Jack had traveled a good deal about the Mediterranean, and was well able to play the mentor. For an hour they talked, and the Merle drifted with the current; but they had not passed out of the shadow of Monkey Mountain before a faint breath of air stirred the headsails. It came stealing down out of the upper canvas, hot and dry.

"By Jove!" cried Jack, "we'll have all the wind we want in a bit. You can tell how hard it is blowing outside the Straits by the distances it reaches in."

Then he raised his voice, and called to the watch,—

"Hello there! Clew up the topsails! Pass gaskets on them!"

The men, who had a dog-like trust in the captain, obeyed quickly, though from the remarks they interchanged sotto voce it was easy to see that the order puzzled them. When everything was made snug aloft, Jack had a reef tucked in the main and foresails, and the outer headsails stowed.

Still no wind. The schooner slowly moved along the edge of the great shadow of the mountain, only her topmast trucks and the peak of her mainsail silvered by the moonlight.

A dull, hoarse whisper, faint and continuous, was now audible ahead. It grew louder by very slow degrees, and Jerry, unused as he was to Mediterranean weather, knew it for the roar of a mighty wind. In the moonlight ahead the waters appeared troubled, the hard-heaving seas being strangely and almost weirdly demarked from the calm in which the Merle rolled forward languidly. All at once, as the yacht emerged from the obscurity of the mountain's shadow, a sudden gust of warm air struck her without warning, and heeled her lee-rail under.

"Hard down!" roared Jack.

Jerry leaped to the wheel, and it took all the force of himself and the helmsman to put the helm hard-a-lee. The Merle righted, and being unusually quick, flew into the eye of the wind. From the threshing sails came a thunderous volley of heavy boomings. The sheet-blocks were whipped to and fro with such violence that twice Jack saw red sparks struck from the fore-traveler guard. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wind left, and it was only by the way she had gathered that the helmsman could pay the yacht off.

"We are going to catch it for fair," Jack said. "Best dowse the foresail entirely, I fancy. Pass the word along to Gonzague to make all snug below. Jerry, step into the cabin and make sure of the course from off Ceuta to Port Mahon."

"Right-o," answered Jerry briskly, diving down.

"Get down the fores'l!" shouted the captain to the men.

"Helm up a bit there—steady! That's the talk! Get all the stops on.—Now then—make fast that sheet there."

The Merle was hardly on her course again when a second squall struck her. Her canvas having been reduced, however, the helmsman kept her broadside to it. The yacht's strongest point was the quickness with which she gathered way, and on this occasion, when nine tenths of her class would simply have lain over and quivered, she rushed ahead with the fury of an avenging goddess. When the hot flaw left her, she was at the very last verge of the calm water.

"Stand by the main-sheet to square off when she meets it!" shouted Jack.

The men had hardly time to get to their stations before a third squall caught the Merle and sent her tearing over the line into the full strength of the wind. The air, hot from the desert, and laden with fine, parching dust, sang in the shrouds and the running-rigging. It slashed the salt spindrift in the smarting faces of the men. The seas grew suddenly confounding in size; huge weltering masses—tons—of greenly black water wallowed without rhythm all about the yacht, up as high as the light-boards. To a landsman it would have seemed impossible that thus scourged by the sirocco across these maddened seas the schooner should escape destruction.

The sheets were started, the yacht was paid off before the wind, and began the last stretch of her run. Tab came on deck with the course, staggering and holding on, and shouted it into Jack's ear. Jack nodded, and gave orders for setting it, a fresh departure being taken from the light on the mole at Ceuta.

The Merle ran close in on the eastern side of Gibraltar. The great rock, sheer and silver-gray in the moonlight, rose out of the raging seas which ringed it about with a zone of roaring breakers. Grimly self-reliant, it stood grand, silent, stupendous, unassailable in the midst of the turmoil and uproar. As the yacht raced by, staggering under her reefed canvas, Taberman regarded the rock, in face of which their craft seemed a mere mote on the blast, with a feeling as near awe as it is possible for buoyant youth to feel. He did not speak until the Merle had swept past the rock-hewn fortress. Then he drew a deep breath and bent over so that Jack could hear him amid the hissing of the sirocco.

"That's immense, Jack, isn't it?" he said.

Without taking his eyes from the throat of the mainsail he was watching as a physician at a crisis watches the pulse of a patient, Jack nodded a deep assent.

At times the Merle seemed fairly to leap like a flying fish from one wave-crest to the next in her northeasterly flight.