“Yes, there was something about it she did not like.”
“Monsieur, what an idea—and what was wrong with it?”
“Oh, it was just a fancy. The sea breeds fancies and superstitions, you know that, Lepine, for I believe you are superstitious yourself.”
“Perhaps, monsieur; all sailors are, and I have had experiences. There are bad and good ships, just as there are bad and good men, of that I am sure. Perhaps that three-master was a bad ship.” Lepine laughed as though at his own words. “All the same,” he went on, “I don’t like warnings, especially off Kerguelen.”
They left the chart house and came out on the bridge.
The wind was still steady but the clouds had consolidated and the night was pitch black. On the bridge the Gaston de Paris seemed driving into a solid wall of ebony.
The Prince after a glance into the binnacle was preparing to go down the bridge steps when a cry from the Look-out made him wheel round. Suddenly, and as if evolved by magic from the blackness, the vague spectre of a vast ship shewed up ahead on the port bow making to cross their course. Thundering along under full canvas without lights and seemingly blind, she seemed only a pistol shot away.
Then the owner of the Gaston de Paris did what no owner ought ever to do: seeing Destruction and judging that by a bold stroke it might be out-leaped, he sprang to the engine room telegraph and flung the lever to full speed ahead.