“The moon?”
“Yes. Which quarter is she in? For the life of me, I can’t tell.”
“Nor I,” rejoins the Captain. “I never think of such a thing.”
“She’s in her last,” puts in the boatman, accustomed to take note of lunar changes.
“It be an old moon now shining all the night, when the sky an’t clouded.”
“You’re right, Jack!” says Ryecroft. “Now I remember; it is the old moon.”
“In which case,” adds the Major, “we must wait for the new one. We want darkness after midnight—must have it—else we cannot act. Let me see; when will that be?”
“The day week,” promptly responds the waterman. “Then she’ll be goin’ down, most as soon as the sun’s self.”
“That’ll do,” says the Major. “Now to the pen!”
Squaring himself to the table, and the sheet of paper spread before him, Wingate writes to dictation. No words of love, but what inspires him with a hope he may once more speak such in the ears of his beloved Mary!