When the watches were changed at eight bells that morning, he had heard Hawkes and Davis, the two seamen of the deck department, protesting violently to Jenkins at the promotion of Forsythe and Kelly, which left them to do all the steering.
Jenkins had not answered orally, but his gestures overruled the protest. Even Casey and Munson argued almost to quarreling over various "tricks of their trade," which Denman, as he listened, could only surmise were to form a part of the private code they had spoken of when haranguing Jenkins.
There was a nervous unrest pervading them all which, while leaving Florrie and Denman intact, even reached the engine room.
At noon Sampson and Dwyer were relieved, and the former turned back to shout down the hatch:
"I told you to do it, and that goes. We've over-hauled and cleaned it. You two assemble and oil it up this afternoon, or you'll hear from me at eight bells."
The voice of Riley—who was nearly as large a man as Sampson—answered hotly but inarticulately, and Denman could only ascribe the row to a difference of opinion concerning the condition of some part of the engines.
Sampson, though possibly a lesser engineer than the others of his department, yet dominated them as Jenkins dominated them all—by pure force of personality. He had made himself chief engineer, and his orders were obeyed, as evidenced by the tranquil silence that emanated from the engine room when Sampson returned at four in the afternoon.
All day the boat lay with quiet engines and a bare head of steam, rolling slightly in a swell that now came from the east, while the sun shone brightly overhead from east to west, and only a few specks appeared on the horizon, to remain for a time, and vanish.
Meanwhile Florrie worried Denman with questions that he could not answer.
"Forsythe took sights in the morning," he explained at length, "and a meridian observation at noon. He has undoubtedly found another 'pocket,' as I call these triangular spaces between the routes; but I do not know where we are, except that, computing our yesterday and last night's run, we are within from sixty to a hundred miles of New York."