I therefore ordered the boatswain at once to get up preventer backstays, fore and aft, to enable our spars to carry a heavy press of sail; and then went to my cabin, where, with a chart of the Atlantic spread open before us upon the cabin table, Jack Keene and I discussed the knotty question of the course that should be steered to enable us once more to bring the _Virginia_ within the range of our own horizon.
