I did nothing. I made no break. Luckily. At seven bells, Lynch marshaled us aft again, to set the spanker this time. As we worked, Newman slipped into the group as quietly and unobtrusively as he had slipped out nearly two hours before. Coiling down gear, I discovered that the running part of the spanker vang was off the pin, and trailing over the side. It dropped down past the open and lighted porthole of one of the cabin berths. Whose berth? Well, I thought that Boston had the right of it. Newman had been "queenin'," with his feet in the ocean, so to speak.
But he had been up to something else, as well. As he and I walked forward, after the watch was relieved, we were overtaken by Lindquist, who was coming from the helm.
"Vat you ban doing mit da longboat to-night?" he asked Newman, curiously.
"Nothing, lad. You must have dreamed at your Sybeel—understand?" was
Newman's prompt reply.
It took a moment to filter into the squarehead's mind. But he got it.
"So—ja, it ban dream; I see noddings," he said.
"And you say nothing?"
"Ja, even to mineself I say noddings," promised Lindquist.
At the foc'sle door, Newman placed a detaining hand upon my shoulder and held me back.
"Was there much comment among the hands?" he asked.
I told him what Boston had said, and that it was the common opinion.