"Very good. Keep on this course and call me at once should a sail show in any quarter." And he descended with proper dignity to his breakfast.
CHAPTER VI
TALL SHIPS AND LAWLESS MEN
There was a noticeable tightening of discipline after my great-uncle's admonition to Bones, and Peter and I were let severely alone, except by Silver, who, I think, found satisfaction in annoying the mate by the effusiveness of his cordiality to us. A second lookout was sent into the foretop, and the watch on deck were continually on the alert. But nothing untoward happened that day. The brig held on her course to the southeast, and the sea surrounded us with the immensity of its restless waters. One moment the land was a faint, hazy streak in the distance; the next it was gone.
My great-uncle paced the deck with measured strides throughout the afternoon, his head bent upon his chest, not a word for anybody. He ignored me as thoroughly as the members of the crew, who treated Silver and Bones with offhand familiarity, but scurried from his path if he came near them and were quick to bob their heads and tug at forelocks. When night came he supervised the hoisting of two lanthorns, red and green, one above the other, to the main truck; and he ate very little of the excellent meal which Silver cooked in the galley and Darby served us in the cabin. Nor, contrary to his usual mood as I had read it, was he inclined for conversation.
He returned immediately to the deck, leaving Peter and me to an exchange of casual remarks with the Irish boy before we went early to our stateroom, full sleepy with the heavy sea-air. Peter was almost himself again, although he dared eat but little and suffered qualms when the brig rolled much from the perpendicular. He was asleep as soon as he lay down, but I drowsed lightly for some hours, and all that time I could hear overhead the tap-tap-tap of footfalls in even cadence as my great-uncle strode from the stern railing to the cabin companionway and back again.
Yet when I went on deck in the morning it was to discover Murray already there, dressed with his customary immaculate precision, his face fresh and unfatigued. He stood astraddle close by the wheel, hands clasped behind him. his gaze fixed upon the tossing waters ahead. The wind had backed around several points during the night, so that we were making more difficult weather of it; and the easy, gliding motion of the previous day had been changed to a choppy roll.
Peter was not communicative; and as I was in no mood for Silver's hypocrisy or Darby's wild talk I strode up to my great-uncle.
"You seem perturbed," I said.
"I am," he returned frankly. "I have two problems upon my mind."