“We will do our best, Lyngstrand, to see it again. But don’t torture yourself about it now. Come out on deck. The barometer is rising, and if the sea goes down to-morrow we shall want to keep clear heads for our investigation of the Gloucester City.—Come!”
He rose and held out his friend’s oilskins, helped him on with them.
They went out and stood in the shelter of the lee-deck, watching the foam-froth sink down and melt in the depths of the malachite waves that rolled away from them, until soon after eight bells the white-jacketed steward clanged out his announcement of dinner.
They found Captain Horst already at his place at the table in the charthouse. It was significant of the unexpressed but clearly felt antipathy which in the past few days had grown up between the skipper and his passengers that he had commenced his meal without waiting for them. Jensen, however, was a level-headed young man who had not the least intention of jeopardizing the enterprise for which he was responsible by ill-timed open bad-temper. He nodded a greeting with a smile which totally ignored the strained circumstances of their last meeting.
“I think the weather is moderating, Captain Horst,” he said, pleasantly, as he sat down.
“Ja,” responded Captain Horst, gruffly, throwing a perfunctory glance through the unshuttered forward windows of the charthouse.
“We ought to reach the neighbourhood of our wreck some time to-night?” pursued Jensen in affable enquiry.
Lyngstrand had addressed himself in silence to the food the steward set before him, but he glanced up as though some undertone of significance in his friend’s voice had caught his ear.
“Thereabouts,” conceded Captain Horst in a tone which sufficiently indicated that he was disinclined for conversation.
But Jensen was cheerfully loquacious.