The next three days passed without incident. The breeze held steadily, but owing to the foul state of the schooner's bottom, which was encrusted with barnacles and growing marine "whiskers" up to a yard in length, her speed was less than five knots. There were navigation instruments and nautical works on board, so that Burgoyne was able to determine the latitude with tolerable certainty. The finding of the ship's longitude was a doubtful operation, since Alwyn was in ignorance of the exactness of the chronometer, but since the course was almost due south, and the ultimate goal a wide one, Burgoyne felt no misgivings on the score of longitude.

At sundown on the third day the wind died down to a flat calm, and the schooner rolled sullenly in the long swell. So violent was the motion of the main-boom, that the crew were compelled to stow the mainsail. Even then the gaff of the fore-sail was charging about like a flail, while every movable object on deck was chattering with the erratic motion of the vessel.

In case of a sudden squall blowing up during the night the three men remained on deck. There was nothing to be done. The wheel, lashed down in a vain attempt to subdue the disconcerting jerk of the rudder chains, required no attention. The side lights were burning brightly. The air was warm, although there was a heavy dew. So the night passed slowly, the crew passing the time by yarning and considerably reducing the stock of tobacco that Black Strogoff had unwittingly left for their comfort.

Day broke. The weary crew looked in vain for the signs of an approaching breeze. Even the swell had subsided until the surface of the sea looked like a burnished mirror against the rising sun. A few dolphins playing near the ship were the only signs of life.

"A regular Paddy's hurricane," remarked Burgoyne. "Looks as if it's going to last. We may as well start up the engine, old son. The sooner we get out of this belt of calm the better."

"All right, skipper," replied Mostyn cheerfully, his tiredness temporarily forgotten at the thought of once more getting way on the vessel.

In less than ten minutes the motor was running, and the schooner bowling along at a speed of seven and a half knots by the patent log. Giving time for the engine to get sufficiently hot for the paraffin to vaporize, Peter turned off the petrol and opened the paraffin-tap. Satisfied with the running of the engine, Mostyn returned on deck.

"That's more like it," he exclaimed, as the faint draught of air set up by the motion of the craft fanned his heated face. "How long do you think it will be before we pick up a breeze?"

"Four or five hours, I expect," replied Burgoyne. "These belts of calm rarely extend more than forty miles in the tropics."

"She'll do that on her head," declared Peter. Then he listened intently. His ear, trained to catch the faint buzzing of a wireless receiver, had detected a pronounced slowing down of the hitherto regular pulsations of the engine.

Without a word he dived down the motor-room ladder. He had not been mistaken. The engine was slowing down. A rapid test located the fault. The carburettor was almost empty.

"Choked jet," he said to himself; then, as an afterthought, he "turned over" to petrol again. Almost immediately the motor picked up and the shaft resumed its normal revolutions.

"That means a choke in the feed-pipe," he decided, and, selecting a small shifting spanner, proceeded to disconnect the unions.

No paraffin flowed through the pipe. Mostyn glanced at the gauge on the tank. It registered zero. Unaccountably the tank had emptied itself of more than seventy gallons of paraffin during the night.

Further researches discovered the cause, although that could not give back the wasted fuel. The paraffin-pipe was fractured, possibly by the starting-handle when the engine back-fired, and now only about a gallon of petrol was available.

Burgoyne looked grave when Mostyn reported the latest misfortune.

"We've paraffin for the lamps," he remarked. "About ten gallons in a drum in the forepeak. Can you patch up the pipe?"

"If that were all the damage, old thing, it wouldn't much matter," declared Peter. "I can fix that up with insulating tape in a couple of minutes. It's the wasted kerosene that worries me."

"S'pose we couldn't pump it out of the bilges?" asked Burgoyne.

"We'll have to, in case it vaporizes and explodes," replied Mostyn. "Of course, it isn't nearly so dangerous as petrol, but in hot weather——"

"I mean to use it again," interrupted Alwyn.

"'Fraid not," said the temporary engineer. "It's all slushing about in the bilge-water. If the schooner had been bone dry we might have managed it. However, ten gallons is better than none. I'll fix up that pipe at once."

Mostyn effected the temporary repair, poured the remaining oil into the tank, and had turned over from petrol to paraffin in less than twenty minutes. He even added a gallon of lubricating oil to the fuel, knowing that with the engine well warmed up the motor would take almost anything in the way of liquid fuel.

Thus nursed, the engine continued running for nearly three hours and a half; then, every drop of combustible being used up, the motor stopped. The flat calm still held.

It held the rest of that day and the following night. Morning found the climatic conditions unchanged, and at noon Burgoyne ascertained that in twenty-four hours the schooner had drifted a little more than ten miles in a nor'-westerly direction, or in other words, she had been carried by the North Equatorial Current farther from her destination.

In vain the men took turns in going aloft to the cross-trees in the hope of seeing the water ruffled by a welcome breeze. As the sun rose higher and higher the heat was so intense that the deck was almost too hot to tread upon, while below the air was suffocating. Although Mostyn and Minalto had pumped the bilges dry, the whole craft reeked of paraffin, mellowed by a dozen distinct odours.

"Cheer up," exclaimed Burgoyne, trying to rouse his companions from a state of lethargy. "Things might be a jolly sight worse. Remember the men who made the British Empire what it is to-day had to endure this sort of thing every time they encountered the Doldrums."

"Yes," grumbled Peter. "They might have; but they knew what to expect—before steam was known, I mean. We are different. Spoilt by civilization, so to speak, and when we are deprived of luxuries which we call necessaries, we grouse. Our motor, for example, it's like a half-baked chestnut, neither one thing nor the other."

"It has helped us, Mr. Mostyn," observed Hilda.

"True, Miss Vivian," agreed Peter guardedly. "Helped us move with the patch of calm. What was the old seamen's dodge of raising the wind?"

"Pitching a tale of woe to charitable passers-by, I guess," replied the girl.

"No, not that way, I mean," continued the Wireless Officer. "Wasn't it whistling or scratching the mast, or some such stunt? I'm afraid I've forgotten."

"Sail-ho!" shouted Minalto from the fore cross-trees. "On our port bow, sir."

The schooner, drifting idly on the placid surface, had swung round so that her bows were pointing nor'-nor'-east. Consequently, if the vessel sighted were approaching, her course would be roughly the same as that of the schooner if the latter had had steerage-way.

"What is she?" inquired Burgoyne, preparing to swarm aloft with Black Strogoff's binoculars slung round his neck.

"Can't make out, sir," was the reply. "Steamer. I think, 'cause there's no canvas as I can see."

"Let's hope it isn't the Malfilio," thought Alwyn, as he grasped the hot, tarry shrouds, and cautiously ascended the none too sound ratlins.

Gaining the elevated perch, Burgoyne levelled the glasses in the direction of the distant vessel.

"She's not the Malfilio, thank goodness, Jasper," he remarked. "She's a steamer schooner-rigged, and with one funnel; hull painted whit............