different. They were on land now and they were not to forget it. At
sea you might make as much noise as you pleased and no harm was done,
but on land anything might happen. One of the perils of the land that
he instanced was that of hanging. For every hundred men that they hung
on land, he said, not more than twenty would be hung at sea. The men
were to sleep at their guns. They would not go far that night; for the
risk of being wrecked at night was another danger peculiar to the
land, while at sea you might sail from set of sun till dawn: yet it
was essential to get out of sight of the sea for if anyone knew they
were there they'd have cavalry after them. And he had sent back
Smerdrak (a young lieutenant of pirates) to cover their tracks where
they came up from the sea. And the merry men vigorously nodded their
heads though they did not dare to cheer, and presently Smerdrak came
running up and they threw him a rope by the stern. And when they had
done fifteen knots they anchored, and Captain Shard gathered his men
about him and, standing by the land-wheel in the bows, under the large
and clear Algerian stars, he explained his system of steering. There
was not much to be said for it, he had with considerable ingenuity
detached and pivoted the portion of the keel that held the leading
axle and could move it by chains which were controlled from the
land-wheel, thus the front pair of wheels could be deflected at will,
but only very slightly, and they afterwards found that in a hundred
yards they could only turn their ship four yards from her course. But
let not captains of comfortable battleships, or owners even of yachts,
criticise too harshly a man who was not of their time and who knew not
modern contrivances; it should be remembered also that Shard was no
longer at sea. His steering may have been clumsy but he did what he
could.

When the use and limitations of his land-wheel had been made clear to