“Ha, ha!” laughed the angry little man, “I knew you would say that. Don’t you kick me under the table, Flannigan, I won’t stand it. I know what I am doing. You are wrong, sir,” he continued, turning to me, “utterly wrong.”
“Some passing ship, perhaps,” suggested Dick.
“No, nor that either.”
“The weather is fine,” I said; “why should we not be heard of at our destination.”
“I didn’t say we shouldn’t be heard of at our destination. Possibly we may not, and in any case that is not where we shall be heard of first.”
“Where then?” asked Dick.
“That you shall never know. Suffice it that a rapid and mysterious agency will signal our whereabouts, and that before the day is out. Ha, ha!” and he chuckled once again.
“Come on deck!” growled his comrade; “you have drunk too much of that confounded brandy-and-water. It has loosened your tongue. Come away!” and taking him by the arm he half led him, half forced him out of the smoking-room, and we heard them stumbling up the companion together, and on to the deck.
“Well, what do you think now?” I gasped, as I turned towards Dick. He was as imperturbable as ever.
“Think!” he said; “why, I think what his companion thinks, that we have been listening to the ravings of a half-drunken man. The fellow stunk of brandy.”