"But it does work round and round, Bill?"
"Ay, when you are near the centre of it. Why, lad, in three hours I have gone round the compass three times, with the wind dead aft all the time; but that's only when you are near the centre. When you ain't it blows straight, and I have known vessels run for days—ay, for weeks—with the wind blowing all the time in the same quarter. Some have been blown down right to the edge of the ice, south. I have been among the icebergs myself, two or three times, and I guess that many a ship has laid her bones down in the ice fields there, and no news ever come back home as to what's come to them; and what makes it worse is as we have convicts on board."
"What difference does that make, Bill?"
"It don't make no difference, as long as all goes straight and fair. I have heard, in course, of risings; but that's only when either the guard are very careless, or the men is so bad treated that they gets desperate, and is ready to die on the off chance of getting free. So far we ain't had no trouble with them. The ship is kept liberal, and the poor wretches ain't cheated out of the rations as government allows them. The officer in charge seems a good sort, and there's no knocking of them about, needless; so there ain't no fear of trouble, as long as things go square. But when things goes wrong, and a vessel gets cast away or anything of that kind, then there's well-nigh sure to be trouble. The convicts seize their opportunity, and it ain't scarce in human nature for them not to take it, and then there ain't no saying what will happen."
"Why, what a croaker you are, Bill! I didn't expect that from you."
"I ain't no croaker, Reuben, but I knows what I knows. I have been through a job like that I am telling you of, once; and I don't want to do it again. I will tell you about it, some day. I ain't saying as I expect any such thing will happen, on board the Paramatta. God forbid. She's a tight ship, and she's got as good officers and crew as ever I sailed with. She has as good a chance as ever a ship had; but when I sees that 'ere sort of sky in these latitudes, I feels as we are in for a tough job."
The conversation was broken off, abruptly, by the call of the first mate.
"All hands aloft to shorten sail!"
"The bells is ringing up for the beginning of the performance, Reuben. Here goes aloft!"
The next minute the whole of the crew were climbing the shrouds, for the watch off duty were all on deck, and the order was expected; for the signs of the weather could, by this time, be read by every sailor on board. Above, the sky was still bright and blue; but around the whole circle of the horizon, a mist seemed to hang like a curtain.