"Have the gas lit," growled Wilson, as he was going forward.
"Sulky devil!" replied the second. "When do you have a civil word for any one?"
This was all in the night's work, and no one was a penny the worse. Civility at midnight is often too dear to be bought from any one but an inferior; and Wilson and Green knew each other very well.
The Palembang was running with the wind on the port quarter, and for a quiet life the old lady was under shortened canvas. She went at it like an old dame in wind and snow; a reefed foresail represented picked-up petticoats; the stowed royals and topgallant-sails suggested that a hat with feathers had been replaced by a handkerchief. For the monsoon was blowing stiff that July night seven degrees to the north of the Line, and threatened to blow stiffer yet.
As it was getting towards two o'clock, or four bells, the captain came on deck, and nodded at the binnacle when Green said: "Good-morning, sir." Then he spread his legs out and considered the dark universe for awhile.
"It has waked up a bit since I went below, Mr. Green," he said presently; and, wanting no answer, he got none. The song of the wind in the rigging and the draught under the foot of the foresail were answer sufficient. There was a pleasing hiss alongside as the Palembang shoved through the Indian Ocean and left a lighter wake behind.
"There's a vigia marked on the chart for hereabouts," said Captain Spiller presently; "it got there through that old fool Banks of the Simoom. He reported it years ago, but it warn't never confirmed. Rocks, he said, and one like Cleopatra's Needle."
"Then you don't credit it either, sir?" asked Green presently.
"I know Banks," replied Spiller, snorting, "and never was such a man for imagination and want of judgment. I'd take it as proof positive as nothing was, if he said it stood to reason it must be. And I'm a man as likes a clean and decent chart. A chart is the character give to an ocean by them as has employed it, a bundle of chits, as the Hindoo beggars say, and to go an' lump in a suspicion agin' the character of an ocean on the word of a man like Banks, why, I've no patience. I've a notion that the law of libel ought to have a say in it."
"Aye, sir," said Green. "The Indian Ocean versus Banks."