"How about seals?" continued Cushner.
"Ain't likely we're going after them," said Stirling.
Stirling turned and stared down upon the quarter-deck. The wheelsman—a Kanaka—hung on the spokes with his dark eyes glued into the binnacle; the canvas shield was too high to allow a view of the taffrail and the cabin companion. Once only Stirling saw moving shadows against the light, as if more than one body had passed from starboard to port. He frowned and turned away, as there was no way to discover the exact situation.
Cushner borrowed the plug of tobacco for a third bite, passing it back without thanks. He stared at Stirling, lifted one huge leg over the edge of the crow's-nest, waited till the ship steadied, and then was gone.
Stirling remained. He glance ahead over the wilderness of Northern waters, and the soft rush of their passage charmed him. The neat manner in which the whaler cleft the seas, the throbbing of the sweet-running engines, gladdened his heart, and he began to whistle a little tune of the West coast. After all, he decided, the world was not such a bad place for a man to fight in and conquer. He had made many mistakes. He should have commanded a ship instead of being an ice pilot. The chicken venture and the wiping out of his scanty fortune had been unfortunate. It had set him back five years in his ambitions.
His face lighted and grew resolute with the wine of living. He had a code, which was the code of right. He had always played fair with seamen and natives, and decided to see the voyage out, earn every penny he could, then try for a ship of his own. Whalers would stake him to almost anything. Marr might be open for an investment. The thing to do was to keep the little skipper's good will, and watch developments, which came fast enough.
On the seventh day after leaving the Golden Gate, a gleam of light was thrown upon the mystery of the great-circle passage.
Stirling, Cushner, and Whitehouse stood in the waist of the ship with nothing more to do than watch the crew lolling forward in indolent respite from their light labours.
The sun hung high in the south with gray clouds creeping up to it like a closing hand. The wind had veered to the south and west, and canted the whaler ever so slightly, as all yards were braced fore and aft.
"What is the exact position?" asked Stirling, turning toward Whitehouse, who had shot the sun and finished his figuring.