The new thing was to find this idea in the mind of a young girl and to hear it expressed with such conviction.
After a while he came forward and went up the steps to the bridge. Captain Lepine was in the chart room, the first officer was on the bridge and Bouvalot, an old navy quarter-master, had the wheel.
“We have slowed down,” said the Prince.
“Yes, monsieur,” replied the first officer, “we are getting close to land. We ought to sight Kerguelen at dawn.”
“What do you think of the weather?”
“I don’t think the weather will bother us much, monsieur, that blow had nothing behind it, and were it not for these fog patches I would ask nothing better; but then it’s Kerguelen—what can one expect!”
“True,” said the other, “it’s a vile place, by all accounts, as far as weather is concerned.”
He tapped at the door of the chart room and entered.
The chart room of the Gaston de Paris was a pleasant change from the dark and damp of the bridge. A couch upholstered in red velvet ran along one side of it and on the couch with one leg up and a pipe in his mouth the captain was resting himself, a big man of the Southern French navy type, with a beard of burnt-up black that reached nearly to his eyes.
The Prince, telling him not to move, sat down and lit a cigar. Then they fell into talk.