CHAPTER III.

WHEREIN WILLIS THE PILOT PROVES "IRREFRAGABLY" THAT EPHEMERIDES DIE OF CONSUMPTION AND HOME-SICKNESS--THE CANOE AND ITS YOUNG ONES--THE SEARCH AFTER THE SLOOP--FOUND--THE SWORD-FISH--FLOATING ATOMS--ADMIRAL SOCRATES.

When they had come within a short distance of the bay, Jack thought he saw a large black creature moving in the bushes that lined the shore.

"A sea monster!" he cried, levelling his musket; "I discovered it, and have the right to the first shot."

"No, sir," said Fritz, whose keen eye was a sort of locomotive telescope, "I object to that, for I do not want you to kill or wound my canoe."

"Nonsense, it moves."

"Whether it moves or not, we shall all see by and by; but do you not observe this monster's young ones gambolling by its side?"

"Which proves I am right, unless you mean to say your canoe has been hatching," and Jack again levelled his rifle.

"Don't fire, it is the hat and jacket of Willis!"

"What!" exclaimed Ernest, "is the Pilot a triton then, that he could dispense with the canoe?"

"Well, yes, unless the canoe has found its way back of its own accord, which would indeed make it an intelligent creature."

"The Pilot has evidently reached Shark's Island by swimming, in spite of surf and breakers--a feat almost without a parallel."

"Bah!" said Ernest, parodying Jack's witticism about the oars, "what does a pilot care about surf and breakers?"

Strongly moored in a creek of the Jackal River, and protected by a bluff, forming a screen between it and the sea, the pinnace had in no way suffered from the storm.

The swell was so violent, that they had a world of trouble in making the island; as they approached, Willis, who had made a speaking-trumpet by joining his hands round his mouth, was roaring out alternately, "starboard," "larboard," "hard-a-port," just as if these terms had not been Hebrew to the impromptu mariners.

At last, tired of holloaing, "Stop a bit," he said, "I shall find a quicker way;" with that he threw himself directly into the sea, and cut through the waves towards them as if his arms had been driven by a steam engine.

Arrived on board, he gave a vigorous turn to the tiller, laid hold of the sheet, let out a reef here, took in another there; the pinnace was soon completely at his command, and behaved admirably; true, she pitched furiously, and the gunwale was under water at every plunge. He headed along the coast till the point beyond which Fritz had first observed the _Nelson_ was fairly doubled; some days before this point was called Cape Deliverance, it was now, perhaps, about to acquire the term of Cape Disappointment, but for the moment its future designation was in embryo.

Leaping on the poop, Willis carefully scanned the horizon as the boat rose upon the summit of the waves; but seeing nothing, he at last leapt down again with an expression of rage that, under other circumstances, would have been irresistibly comic. Abandoning the direction of the pinnace, he went and sat down on a bulk-head, and covered his face with his hands, in an attitude of profound desolation.

"Willis! Willis!" cried Jack, "I shall tell Sophia."

But there was neither the soft voice there, the caressing hand, nor the sweet fascination of the young girl's presence, and Willis continued immovable.

Becker saw that his was one of those minds that grew less calm the more they were urged, and the excitement of which must be permitted to wear itself out; he therefore beckoned his sons to leave him to his own reflections.

The wind still blew a gale, and the pinnace pitched heavily; but the sun was now beginning to break through the masses of lurid cloud, and the air was becoming less and less charged with vapor.

"I can descry nothing either," said Becker; "and yet this is the direction the storm must have driven the sloop."

"The sea is very capricious," suggested Fritz.

"True, but not to the extent of carrying a ship against the wind."

"Unfortunately," said Jack, "it is not on sea as on land, where the slightest indications of an object lost may lead to its discovery; a word dropped in the ear of a passer-by might put you on the track, but here it is no use saying, 'Sir, did you not see the _Nelson_ pass this way?'"

"Fire a shot," said Ernest; "it may perhaps be heard, now that the air is less humid."

The two-pounder was ready charged; Fritz struck a light and set fire to a strip of mimosa bark, with which he touched the piece, and the report boomed across the waters.

Willis raised his head and listened anxiously, but soon dropped it again, and resumed his former attitude of hopeless despair.

"It may be," said Ernest, "that the _Nelson_ hears our signal, though we do not hear hers."

"How can that be?" inquired Jack.

"Why, very easily. Sound increases or diminishes in intensity according as the wind carries it on or retards it."

"What, then, is sound, that the wind can blow it about, most learned brother?"

"It is a result of the compression of the air, that from its elasticity extends and expands, and which causes a sort of trembling or undulation, similar to that which is observed in water when a stone is thrown into it."

"And you may add," said Becker, "that bodies striking the air excite sonorous vibrations in this fluid; thus it rings under the lash that strikes it with violence, and whistles under the rapid impulsion of a switch: it likewise becomes sonorous when it strikes itself with force against any solid body, as the wind when it blows against the cordage of ships, houses, trees, and generally every object with which it comes in contact."

"I can understand," replied Jack, "how this sonorous effect is produced on the particles of air in immediate contact with the object struck; but how this sound is propagated, I do not see."

"Very likely; but still it travels from particle to particle, in a circle, at the rate of three hundred and forty yards in a second."

"Three hundred and forty yards in a second!" said Willis, who was beginning by degrees to recover his self-possession. "Well, that is what I should call going a-head."

"And by what sort of compasses has this speed been measured, Master Ernest?"

"The first accurate measurement, Master Jack, was made at Paris in 1738. There are there two tolerably elevated points, namely, Montmartre and Montlhery--the distance between these, in a direct line, is 14,636 _toises_. Cannons were fired during the night, and the engineers on one of the elevations observed that an interval of eighty-six seconds and a half elapsed between the flash and the report of a cannon fired on the other."

"That half-second is very amusing," said Jack laughing; "if there had been only eighty or eighty-six net, one might still be permitted to entertain some doubts; but eighty-six and a half admits nothing of the kind. But why not three-quarters or six-eighths, they would do as well?"

"What is more natural than to reckon the fraction, if we are desirous of obtaining absolute precision? Is six months of your time of no value? Are thirty minutes more or less on the dial of your watch of no signification to you?"

"Your brother is perfectly right, Jack; you are not always successful in your jokes."

"Other experiments have been made since then," continued Ernest, "and the results have always been the same, making allowances for the wind, and a slight variation that is ascribed to temperature."

"To confirm the accuracy of this statement, the speed of light would have to be taken into consideration."

"True; but the velocity of light is so great, that the instant a cannon is fired the flash is seen."

"Whatever the distance?"

"Yes, whatever the distance. Bear in mind that the rays of the sun only require eight minutes to traverse the thirty-four millions of leagues that extend between us and that body. Hence it follows that the time light takes to travel from one point to another on the earth may be regarded as _nil_."

"That is something like distance and speed," remarked Willis, "and may be all right as regards the sun, but I should not be disposed to admit that there are any other instances of the same kind."