"What! what!" exclaimed Owen, "don't you mean to let us have our grog?"
"Once and for all, no."
For a moment, with a malicious grin upon his lips, Owen stood confronting the captain; then, as though thinking better of himself, he turned round and rejoined his companions, who were still talking together in an undertone.
When I was afterward discussing the matter with Curtis, I asked him whether he was sure he had done right in refusing the brandy.
"Right!" he cried, "to be sure I have. Allow those men to have brandy!
I would throw it all overboard first."
CHAPTER XXXIV
A SQUALL
DECEMBER 21.—No further disturbance has taken place among the men. For a few hours the fish appeared again, and we caught a great many of them, and stored them away in an empty barrel. This addition to our stock of provisions makes us hope that food, at least, will not fail us.
Usually the nights in the tropics are cool, but to-day, as the evening drew on, the wonted freshness did not return, but the air remained stifling and oppressive, while heavy masses of vapor hung over the water.
There was no moonlight; there would be a new moon at half-past one in the morning, but the night was singularly dark, except for dazzling flashes of summer lightning that from time to time illuminated the horizon far and wide. There was, however, no answering roll of thunder, and the silence of the atmosphere seemed almost awful.