“Humph!” yawned the skipper from within. “That’s a good job, Fosset. I think we’ve had enough wind to last us for a blue moon!”
“So say I, sir,” agreed the other with much heartiness. “I wouldn’t like to go through the same experiences again, by Jingo!”
“Nor I,” came from the other, evidently about to turn out from his bunk. “I’ll be on deck in five minutes or so, Fosset.”
The first mate, however, would not take this for a dismissal, having apparently further important information to give and which he at once proceeded to disclose.
“Do you know, sir, I think we’re in the Gulf Stream,” he said in an impressive tone. “There’s a lot of the weed knocking about round the ship.”
“Gulf-weed?” exclaimed the skipper’s voice again from the cabin, sounding a bit muffled as if he were in the act of pulling his shirt over his head. “Are you certain?”
“Aye,” affirmed the other. “There’s not the slightest doubt about it. It’s as plain as a pike staff, sir.”
“The deuce it is!” said the skipper in a louder key, showing that my surmise had been correct as to the progress of his toilet, and that his head was now unloosed from its bag-like envelope. “By George, I can’t make it out at all!”
“There’s no getting over the fact, sir,” persisted the first mate. “We’re quite surrounded by the weed. I saw it well the first streak of light at two bells, on suddenly looking over the side, sir. There’s Mr O’Neil up on the bridge now, and he has noticed it too!”
The skipper, to judge from the voice that came from his cabin and the way he was banging his boots and other things about, was as much mystified by Mr Fosset’s unexpected announcement as he had been the previous evening by the sight he and I and the boatswain had seen.