Davis roused, supported himself with a hand on the outrigger gratings, and blinked at the dawn; then he yawned, then he began to get command of speech.
“Whach you want digging me in the ribs like that for?” said Davis. “You and your flat calms! Where’s the hurry? Are you afraid it’ll run away? Blest if you aren’t the——”
“No use quarrellin’,” cut in the other; “fightin’s a mug’s game, and words won’t bring no wind. Pass us a drinkin’ nut.”
Davis passed the nut, and then, while the other refreshed himself, leant with his elbow on the grating and his eyes fixed lazily on the east.
Morning bank there was none, nor colour, nothing but a great crystal window showing infinite distance and taking suddenly a reflection of fire and a sill of gold: gold that moved and ran north and south and then leapt boiling across the swell as the sun burst up, hitting Harman in the back and Davis in the face and turning the lingering moon to a grey cinder above the azure of the west and the morning sea.
Away to the south, across the sunlit swell, a ship showed becalmed and painting the water with the reflection of her canvas, and, wonder of wonders, a mile from her and more to the north stood another ship, also held in the grip of the calm, and seeming the duplicate of the first in rig, tonnage, and design.
They were whalers, two of the last of the old whaling fleet, cruising maybe in company or brought together by chance.
Harman was the first to sight them; then Davis turned, and, leaning comfortably on the outrigger gratings, looked.
“Whalemen,” said Harman. “Look at ’em, stump topmasts, tryin’-out works and all! Look at ’em—damned pair of slush tubs!”
Davis said nothing; he spat into the water and continued to look while Harman went on.