"Strained herself, I suppose," growled the skipper. "She's only a bally old clothes'-basket at best. Waal, put more hands to the spare pumps and keep the engine going."
The third mate went on deck, and almost immediately after there was a hail from the mast-head.
"Land on the port bow!"
A long, low, cloud-like streak, with here and there a conical hill, that is all the men saw, and probably only the captain and mate knew what that land really was.
There was a gloom over the ship this forenoon that not even the bright sunshine could dispel. Now and then the land was obscured as if by rising clouds or fog.
Hardly a sound to be heard save that of the pumps at work. Never a word of command. The idle men in groups here and there about the fo'c'sle or ship's waist, but all silent and moody, though they cast wondering glances aft occasionally to where on the poop the skipper was walking up and down with the mate.
The quiet to-day seemed ominous. Nature herself appeared to be waiting and waiting for something to happen.
The skipper paused in his walk to leisurely fill his pipe, casting now and then furtive glances at the mate.
"God! sir," cried the latter at last, "don't look at me like that. See, sir, we--that is you and I--are both shareholders in this ship. If our plan succeeds we will win the stakes, but if I thought you meant to play me false, by heavens! I'd scupper you on the spot. You say it is all square between us? Then--don't eye me again like that."
"It is all right, mate, and you know it. There! don't be a fool. Go below and have some rum to straighten you out a bit."