He was also angry, I know, so I thought it good for me to turn out likewise from my bunk as speedily as possible, it not being advisable under the circumstances to be “caught napping.”
“By George, I can’t understand it!” repeated Captain Applegarth crossly. “If we’re in the Gulf Stream, all I can say is, we must have drifted a wonderful distance in the last two or three days. Why, man, the current is seldom perceptible above the fortieth parallel!”
“I know that, sir,” replied the first mate; “but if you recollect, sir, from the lunar observation Mr O’Neil took on the night of the breakdown, we were then as far south as 41° 30 minutes, and we’ve been drifting south-east by east ever since.”
“Well, Fosset, I’m hanged if I know where we are, after the bucketting-about we’ve had since last Friday!” said the skipper, who now came into the saloon, where I, already dressed, was hurriedly having a cup of cocoa and bite of biscuit Weston had just brought me in from the pantry. “I feel half inclined to believe now in the old superstition about it being an unlucky day, though I always used to laugh at the notion!”
“There are plenty aboard who believe queerer things than that!” said Mr Fosset drily, with a meaning glance in my direction, eyeing my cocoa as if he rather fancied a cup himself. “I say, Haldane, that cocoa smells good!”
“It’s not half bad, sir,” I replied grinning. “Perhaps you would like some too, sir. Weston’s got a lot more inside here, hot, just fetched from the galley!”
“I don’t mind if I do have a cup,” said he. “Will you join me, cap’en?”
“No, thanks; I’m too worried. I’ll wait till breakfast,” said the skipper, turning to go up on deck by the companion-way and hitching his cap off the hook by his cabin door. “You won’t be long, I hope, eh?”
“I’ll follow you up in a jiffey, sir, as soon as I have swallowed a toothful of this warm stuff to keep out the cold. Hi, steward?”
“Aye, aye, sir?” answered Weston, promptly putting his head out of his pantry, where he had been listening. “Cup of cocoa, sir?—yezzir.”