“That you are at least consistent,” was all I could say, and I went on washing the dishes.

CHAPTER VII

At last, after three days of variable winds, we have caught the north-east trades.  I came on deck, after a good night’s rest in spite of my poor knee, to find the Ghost foaming along, wing-and-wing, and every sail drawing except the jibs, with a fresh breeze astern.  Oh, the wonder of the great trade-wind!  All day we sailed, and all night, and the next day, and the next, day after day, the wind always astern and blowing steadily and strong.  The schooner sailed herself.  There was no pulling and hauling on sheets and tackles, no shifting of topsails, no work at all for the sailors to do except to steer.  At night when the sun went down, the sheets were slackened; in the morning, when they yielded up the damp of the dew and relaxed, they were pulled tight again—and that was all.

Ten knots, twelve knots, eleven knots, varying from time to time, is the speed we are making.  And ever out of the north-east the brave wind blows, driving us on our course two hundred and fifty miles between the dawns.  It saddens me and gladdens me, the gait with which we are leaving San Francisco behind and with which we are foaming down upon the tropics.  Each day grows perceptibly warmer.  In the second dog-watch the sailors come on deck, stripped, and heave buckets of water upon one another from overside.  Flying-fish are beginning to be seen, and during the night the watch above scrambles over the deck in pursuit of those that fall aboard.  In the morning, Thomas Mugridge being duly bribed, the galley is pleasantly areek with the odour of their frying; while dolphin meat is served fore and aft on such occasions as Johnson catches the blazing beauties from the bowsprit end.

Johnson seems to spend