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CHAPTER XLVI
Four more days have passed; the gale has blown itself out; we are not
more than three hundred and fifty miles off Valparaiso; and the
Elsinore, this time due to me and my own stubbornness, is rolling in
the wind and heading nowhere in a light breeze at the rate of nothing
but driftage per hour.
In the height of the gusts, in the three days and nights of the gale,
we logged as much as eight, and even nine, knots. What bothered me
was the acquiescence of the mutineers in my programme. They were
sensible enough in the simple matter of geography to know what I was
doing. They had control of the sails, and yet they permitted me to
run for the South American coast.
More than that, as the gale eased on the morning of the third day,
they actually went aloft, set top-gallant-sails, royals, and
skysails, and trimmed the yards to the quartering breeze. This was
too much for the Saxon streak in me, whereupon I wore the Elsinore
about before the wind, fetched her up upon it, and lashed the wheel.
Margaret and I are agreed in the hypothesis that their plan is to get
inshore until land is sighted, at which time they will desert in the
boats.
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