“Yes, it’s gone, I suppose, sir. One couldn’t see where the shot hit for smoke, but I expect it turned up the water and scared the thing away. Well, it’s best as it is. A great thing like that might have grown very dangerous if it had been hit.”
“Oh, we don’t know that,” cried the doctor. “Well, I suppose we can do nothing more,” he continued, as, following his nephew’s example, he strained his eyes over the darkening plain.
“No,” said the captain. “Cover up that gun, my lads, and break off. You, Cross, take charge of the gun, and well sponge her out. You others, pikes; fall in. Now then, right face. March!”
“I’m disappointed,” said the doctor, as the men were marched off. “I should have liked to have had a closer examination of that creature. Well, captain, what next?”
“Tea,” said the skipper bluntly.
The tropics were very near, and the night began to come on rapidly, so that the tea meal was partaken of by the light of the swinging lamp. But before it was over the moon rose above the sea very bright and silvery, and getting rapidly near the full, while later on as it rose higher it was nearly as light as day.
Rodd was anxious to get on deck again, to see if by any possibility the weird-looking object that they had seen that evening might rise to the surface; but anxious as he was to join the sailors and question them as to whether they had seen anything more, the conversation between his uncle and the skipper kept him below, where he listened to their different expressed opinions.
At last, though, he went on deck, and found all the men grouped together forward, and whispering to themselves about the visitor they had seen.
One man said it was a sign, and another grunted, while a third turned to Joe Cross to ask his opinion.
It was the stout heavy member of the crew who went by the name of the Bun, and seeming the most impressed of the whole crew he asked Joe Cross as above.