“Mate and a sailor. They've had some hot drinks, and are coming along all right.”
“We'll have a word with them, Mr. Bangs.”
The survivors of the Warren were forward in the crew's quarters, and they were still dazed. They had not recovered from their fright; they were sullen.
“I'm sorry, men! Sailor to sailor, you know what I mean if I don't say any more. It's bad business on both sides. But what were you doing in the fairway?”
“We wa'n't in the fairway,” protested a grizzled man, evidently the mate. He was uneasy in his borrowed clothes—he had surrendered his own garments to a pantryman who had volunteered to dry them.
“You must have been,” insisted Captain Mayo.
“I know we was all of two miles north of the regular course. I 'ain't sailed across these shoals for thirty years not to know soundings when I make 'em myself. Furthermore, she'll speak for herself, where she's sunk.”
The captain could not gainsay that dictum.
The mate scowled at the young man.
“I've got a question of my own. What ye doing, yourself, all of two miles out of your course, whanging along, tooting your old whistle as if you owned the sea and had rollers under you to go across dry ground with, too?”