"
"Fool!"
"Idiot!"
Back and forth they wrangle until my head is whirling around and I
am ready to believe that I am in the day after the last week before
next.
I remembered a parting caution of the Suva harbour-master: "IN EAST
LONGITUDE TAKE FROM THE NAUTICAL ALMANAC THE ELEMENTS FOR THE
PRECEDING DAY."
Then a new thought came to me. I corrected the Equation of Time for
Sunday and for Saturday, making two separate operations of it, and
lo, when the results were compared, there was a difference only of
four-tenths of a second. I was a changed man. I had found my way
out of the crypt. The Snark was scarcely big enough to hold me and
my experience. Four-tenths of a second would make a difference of
only one-tenth of a mile--a cable-length!
All went merrily for ten minutes, when I chanced upon the following
rhyme for navigators:
"Greenwich time least
Longitude east;
Greenwich best,
Longitude west."
Heavens! The Snark's time was not as good as Greenwich time.
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