"Hit keeps 'em from thinking of their troubles," he had declared to Stirling. "Now that the skipper has taken charge of the poop, there isn't much for them to do."
Stirling bided his time and kept a close watch on the quarter-deck. He often saw Marr striding from port to starboard and back again directly aft the wheelsman, though the canvas that had been rigged shut off most of the view of the taffrail and the jack-staff. A position in the crow's-nest, however, was a fair one to observe the after part of the Pole Star. From this coign of vantage Stirling watched developments with eyes which had been sharpened by suspicion and a determination to find out the truth about the unknown woman.
Cushner climbed up through the lubber's hole on the third day of the outbound passage, lifted himself over the edge of the crow's-nest, and dropped down beside Stirling.
Their course had been changed a half point by Marr's orders. The wind was southerly and came over the port quarter in soft billows of warmth. It had been tempered by the Japan Current.
"Got a chew?" asked the second mate, resting his elbows on the edge of the crow's-nest and squinting aft to where the mizzen sail billowed, with the yard set sharply around.
Stirling passed over a plug. "Save me some," he said, slowly. "Go easy, Sam. I don't often use the weed, but I may have to do something desperate if Marr keeps changing his course. We're almost on the Japan route. Another half point will see the great-circle route. That takes us far up and out in the North Pacific. Wouldn't wonder if it was a rendezvous."
"What's that?" asked Cushner, clamping his huge jaws on the plug and parting his icicle-like beard for a second bite.
"A meeting-place. A gamming spot in the ocean!"
Cushner understood the last. "Gamming" was a term used only by whalers. It meant visiting another ship or being visited by the afterguard of a whaler.
"Maybe, Stirling. Maybe. Who could we gamm out in this ocean?" The second mate swept an arm to the northward. A wild waste of harrowed waters, stirred into whitecaps by the southern breeze, extended to a linelike horizon. There was no speck or sail to gladden the view. It appeared like a stretch which would reach infinity.