Cammock did not answer, but remained standing, like a figure of bronze, staring into Stukeley’s face. For fully a minute he stood there silently. Then he spun round swiftly, in his usual way, giving a little whistle. He paused at the door to stare at Stukeley again.
“I’m glad you admire my beauty,” said Stukeley. “You’re not much used to seeing gentlemen, are you?”
Still Cammock did not answer. At last he spat through the half-opened gun-port. “My God,” he said. Then he walked out on deck, leaving Stukeley rubbing his elbow; but softly chuckling, thinking he had won the field.
V.
STUKELEY
“Thus can my love excuse the slow offence.”
Sonnet li.
“I can endure
All this. Good Gods a blow I can endure.
But stay not, lest thou draw a timeless death
Upon thyself.”
The Maid’s Tragedy.
One morning, about six weeks later, when the Broken Heart was near her port of call, Captain Margaret sat at the cabin table, with a book of logarithms beside him, a chart before him, and a form for a ship’s day’s work neatly ruled, lying upon the chart. He made a faint pencil-line upon the chart, to show the ship’s position by dead-reckoning. Then, with a pair of compasses, he made a rough measurement of the distance still to run. Stukeley, lying at length upon the locker-top, watched him with contempt.
The Broken Heart had had a fair summer passage, with no severe weather. She had spoken with no ships since leaving Falmouth. Her little company of souls had been thrown upon themselves, and the six weeks of close association had tried their nerves. There were tense nerves among the afterguard, on that sunny morning, just off Soundings.
“Where are we?” Stukeley asked.
“Just off Soundings,” said Margaret.
“Where the blazes is that?”