“It is more than that; but, if it were three thousand, I should obey orders all the same.”
“I don’t think we are justified in obeying orders under such circumstances,” continued Gregory. “I think Mr. Fluxion will blame you and me if we assist in sailing the steamer off on this long voyage, when the orders were to take the vessel to the Madeiras.”
“Of course you have a right to your own opinion, Mr. Gregory,” added Raymond coldly. “Good-morning.”
The fourth officer left the pilot-house, where the conversation had been carried on in the presence of the quartermaster and the seaman who were steering the steamer. He was sorry he had listened so long to the malecontent; and, as he walked aft, he debated with himself whether or not he ought to wake the captain, and inform him of the mutinous sentiments uttered by the first officer. But Gregory had taken the trumpet, and had not yet declined to obey the orders of the captain as transmitted to him by his predecessor in charge; and he concluded to say nothing that might place him in the position of a tale-bearer. He turned in; but, as he had had his full six hours of sleep, he lay awake thinking of what Gregory had said to him.
Gregory wanted to do something; and, by diligent thinking, he had fully persuaded himself that the course taken by Capt. O’Hara was all wrong. In the first place, he was exposing the ship’s company to the perils of contagion; and, in the second, he was disregarding his orders to take the steamer to Madeira in the event that she should part company with the schooners. He concluded that these were the orders, though he had not heard the senior vice-principal give the instructions to the commander of the steamer.
“I think you are quite right, Mr. Gregory,” said the quartermaster at the wheel, after Raymond had gone. “If the truth were known, Capt. Fairfield is of the same mind. I know the fellows from the Josephine don’t like the idea of breathing the air from that floating hospital for the next week or ten days; nor of going off on a cruise two or three weeks, wherever Mr. O’Hara or the Tritonia chooses to take them.”
Gregory listened to this long speech without saying a word. The sentiments were his own; but they were mutinous in their nature, and he ought to have reproved the quartermaster for speaking to his superior officer in such terms of the captain.
“How were we going when the log was heaved last?” asked the first officer, taking no notice of the speech of the man at the wheel.
“Ten and a half, sir,” replied Stokes.
Gregory went aft, calling for the watch on the forecastle to follow him, and heaved the log. To his astonishment, the Ville d’Angers was making eleven knots. The firemen were evidently doing their best. He had heard Mr. Frisbone say that the steamer would make fifteen knots under favorable circumstances, and that she had done it most of the time before the collision. At this rate she would be in Portsmouth in five days. He looked at the hulk astern, and saw that she carried the square sail she had rigged on the jury-mast, and the wind was fresh enough to help her along a knot or two an hour.