"How much water?" Don Erminio asked, and when Miguel answered, signed to a man on the forecastle.
The lead plunged, the line ran aft, and stopping swung upright at the poop. Two men began to haul and one shouted the depth.
"Half a _brazo_ too much. It is very good," the captain remarked.
Then the screw began to throb and _Mossamedes_, going half-speed, forged ahead. Sometimes she crossed green belts and sometimes went round patches where the water was yellow and the swell curled as if the Atlantic waves ran up an inclined bottom. Kit thought Miguel did not hesitate; his lined face was imperturbable, and he directed the helmsman with a firm movement of his hand. Yet it was obvious they crept round banks where a ship like _Mossamedes_ would not float. When Miguel nodded and the captain rang his telegraph, all felt some relief.
"_Fondo!_" the captain shouted and the anchor leaped from the forecastle.
The splash was drowned by the roar of running cable that presently stopped with a jar. She brought up, swung to the wind, and there was a strange quietness on board.
"We are arrived," said Don Erminio. "If Miguel's saint does not guard him until the sheep come, I do not think we will get to sea again. In the meantime, we will catch fish and make _baccalao_ for my señora."
In the morning they launched a boat and rowed to the coast. The point was low and stony, and farther along the hammered beach a shallow hollow ran down to the sand. In the background one saw a sandy waste dotted by thick-stalked euphorbia. One could land by jumping overboard into the surf while the others held off the boat, and Don Erminio shot a partridge and got some bait. Then they went back to the steamer, and for three days Kit and the captain fished.
Shoals surrounded the basin where _Mossamedes_ rode two miles from land. From her deck it looked as if she were at sea, for the banks that sheltered her were only marked by lines of foam. Although she rolled, the motion was not violent, and Kit got a sense of space and freedom. He liked the lonely anchorage better than a noisy port. In the morning they hoisted the boat's lugsail, and following the edge of the sands, stopped where fish were numerous. A disturbed swell crossed the shoals, and spray blew about. Sometimes when the boat sank in the trough they could not see the ship, but the fresh breeze tempered the heat and drove along a thin haze that softened the light. Kit caught strange, deep-bodied fish with square heads, and was content.