"Hum!" the officer said, without any other expression of his opinion.
"Where may we be going, Lieutenant?" the sailor went on.
"Are you very anxious to know?" Lovel asked him, with a half-sweet, half-bitter tone.
"Well," the other said, as he turned his quid in his mouth, and sent forth a stream of blackish saliva, "I confess that I should not be sorry to know."
"Really now?—well, my boy," the old sailor said, with a crafty smile, "if you are asked, you will answer that you do not know; in that way you are certain of not compromising, and, before all, of not deceiving, yourself."
Then, after looking for an instant at the helmsman's downcast face on receiving this strange answer, he added—"Strike eight bells, my dear; there is the sun rising over there behind the mountains: we will call the watch."
And, after restoring his pipe to the corner of his mouth, he resumed his walk. The sailor seized the cord fastened to the clapper of the bell, and struck four double strokes. At this signal they knew so well, the men lying in the forecastle sprang up tumultuously, and rushed to the hatchway, shouting—
"Up with you, starboard watch; up, up, it is four o'clock. Starboard watch, ahoy!"
So soon as the watch was changed, the master gave the necessary orders to dress the vessel. Then, as the sun was beginning to rise above the horizon in a flood of ruddy vapour, which gradually dispersed the dense fog, that had enveloped the brig throughout the night, like a winding-sheet, he set a man to the foretop to look seaward, and examine the coast they were sailing along. When all these various duties had been discharged, the old sailor resumed his walk, taking a look every now and then at the masts, and muttering between his teeth—"Where can we be going? He would be very kind, if he would tell me: we are making a regular blind man's traverse, and we shall be very lucky if we get out of it safe and sound."
All at once his face brightened, and a glad smile spread over it. The Captain had just left his cabin and come upon deck. Captain Johnson was at this period a man of hardly three-and-thirty years of age, above the middle height; his gestures were simple, graceful, and full of natural elegance; his features were masculine and marked, and his black eyes, in which intelligence sparkled, gave his countenance an expression of grandeur, strength, and loyalty.