He turned abruptly toward Chanler on the bridge.
“The wind is rising, sir,” he said. “At five knots we will barely crawl.”
“Yes?” said Chanler, yawning. “Well, crawling is exactly my mood today.”
“We’ll lose precious days up north if we continue at this speed.”
Chanler smiled the shrewd smile of a man who has a joke all to himself.
“No, cappy; that’s once you’re wrong. It’s just the other way round: I’d lose precious days if we didn’t continue at this speed, as you’ll see when the time comes.”
The captain glared after him as Chanler leisurely went aft to his stateroom. The glare turned for an instant to a smile, of a sort that Chanler would have been troubled to understand had it been seen. Then Brack stamped forward and stood with folded arms, looking ahead over the gray, tossing sea, his face raging with impatience over the slowness of the yacht’s progress.
VIII
I climbed to the wireless house and found Freddy Pierce eagerly looking for my appearance.
“Did you see it?” he demanded. “Did you see it?”