"Reg'lar 'umbug the Southern Cross," grunted Coke; "it ain't a patch on the Bear."
"Mr. Hozier said something like that," put in Iris mischievously.
"Did 'e? Well 'e's right for once. But don't you go an' take as Gospel most things 'e says. Every shipmaster knows that the second officer simply can't speak the truth. It ain't natural. W'y, it 'ud bust a steam pipe if 'e tole you wot 'e really thought of the ole man."
Coke grinned at his own pleasantry. To one of his hearers, at least, it seemed to be passing strange that he was so ready to forget such a vital defect in the steering gear as had manifested its existence a few minutes earlier.
At any rate, he remained on the bridge until long after Iris had seen and admired the cluster of stars which oldtime navigators used to regard with awe. When shafts of white light began to taper, pennon-like, in the eastern sky, the girl went back to her cabin. Contrary to Hozier's expectation, Coke did not attempt to draw from him any account of their conversation prior to the inexplicable mishap to the wheel. He examined a couple of charts, made a slight alteration in the course, and at four o'clock took charge of the bridge.
"Just 'ave a look round now while things is quiet," he said, nodding to Hozier confidentially. "I'll tell you wot I fancy: a rat dragged a bit of bone into a gear-box. If the plankin' is badly worn anywhere, get the carpenter to see to it. I do 'ate to 'ave a feelin' that the wheel can let you down. S'pose we was makin' Bahia on the homeward run, an' that 'appened! It 'ud be the end of the pore ole ship; an' oo'd credit it? Not a soul. They'd all say 'Jimmie threw 'er away!' Oh, I know 'em, the swine—never a good word for a man while 'e keeps straight, but tar an' feathers the minnit 'e 'as a misforchun!"
Hozier found a gnawed piece of ham-bone lying in the exact position anticipated by Coke. An elderly salt who had served with the P. & O. recalled a similar incident as having occurred on board an Indian mail steamer while passing through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. He drew a lurid picture of the captain's dash across the forms of lady passengers sleeping inside a curtained space on deck, and his location of the area of disturbance with an ax just in time to prevent a disaster.
The carpenter busied himself with sawing and hammering during the whole of the next two days, for the Andromeda revealed many gaps in her woodwork, but the escapade of an errant ham-bone was utterly eclipsed by a new sensation. At daybreak one morning every drop of water in the vessel's tanks suddenly assumed a rich, blood-red tint. This unnerving discovery was made by the cook, who was horrified to see a ruby stream pouring into the earliest kettle. Thinking that an iron pipe had become oxidized with startling rapidity, he tried another tap. Finally, there could be no blinking the fact that, by some uncanny means, the whole of the fresh water on board had acquired the color if not the taste of a thin Burgundy.
Coke was summoned hastily. Noblesse oblige; being captain, he valiantly essayed the task of sampling this strange beverage.
"It ain't p'ison," he announced, gazing suspiciously at the little group of anxious-faced men who awaited his verdict. "It sartinly ain't p'ison, but it's wuss nor any teetotal brew I've tackled in all me born days. 'Ere, Watts, you know the tang of every kind o' likker—'ave a sup?"