Presently the captain sighed deep and began:
“I’m glad you’re here on my quarterdeck with me to-night, doctor. Things are all going wrong, sir. Barometer’s way down, compass is bedeviled, seams opening fore and aft. It’s bad, doctor—very, very bad!”
“I see there’s something wrong, of course,” said Filhiol with sympathy.
“Everything’s wrong, sir. That grandson of mine—you—noticed just what was the matter with him?”
“H-m! It’s rather dark here, you know,” hedged Filhiol.
“Not so dark but what you understood,” said Briggs grimly. “When there’s a storm brewing no good navigator thinks he can dodge it by locking himself in his cabin. And there is a storm brewing this time, a hurricane, sir, or I’ve missed all signals.”
“Just what do you mean, captain?”
“Violence, drink, women—wickedness and sin! You smelled his breath, didn’t you? You took an observation of his face?”
“Well, yes. He’s been drinking a little, of course; but these boys in college—”
“He very nigh killed the skipper of the Sylvia Fletcher, and there’ll be the devil to pay about it. It was just luck there wasn’t murder done before my very eyes. He’s been drinking enough so as to wake a black devil in his heart! Enough so he’s like a roaring bull after the first pretty girl in the offing.”