There was a sharp slap heard in the darkness, caused by the boatswain bringing his hand smartly down upon his sturdy thigh.
“Right you are, my lad. I never thought of that. I oughter, but it didn’t come. ’Cause I was so wet, I suppose. Well, sir, what do you think?”
“Try, every one of you,” said Poole, “whether you can make out a light. The Teal oughtn’t to be very far away.”
“Nay, sir, she oughtn’t to be, but she is. Off shore here in these seas you get currents running you don’t know where. We don’t know, but I expect we are in one of them, and it’s carrying us along nobody knows how fast; and like as not another current’s carrying on the same game with the Teal.”
“Well, we must row, and row hard,” said Poole.
“But that may be making worse of it,” put in Fitz, who had been listening and longing to speak.
“Well done,” said the boatswain. “Spoke like a young man-o’-war officer! He’s right, Mr Poole, sir. I am longing to take an oar so as to get warm and dry; but it’s no use to try and make what’s as bad as ever it can be, ever so much worse.”
“That would puzzle you, Mr Butters,” said Fitz, laughing.
“Oh, I don’t know, sir,” said the boatswain seriously, and perfectly unconscious of the bull he had made. “We might, you know. What’s to be done, Mr Poole?”
“I can only see one thing to be done,” said the skipper’s son, “and that seems so horrible and wanting in spirit.”