“A fine night, stranger,” he said at length, in a slightly nasal tone.
Still Will remained absorbed, and it was not until the remark had been twice repeated that he looked up with a start.
“I beg pardon; did you speak?” he said. “Well, yes,” drawled the dark man, puffing a long white cloud from his lips, “I did make an observation regardin’ the weather. It looks fine, don’t it?”
“It does,” said Will.
“You’re waitin’ for Captain Dall, ain’t you?”
“Why, how did you come to know that?” said Will.
“I didn’t come to know it, I guessed it,” said the dark man.
At that moment the door opened, and a short thick-set man, in a glazed hat and pea-jacket, with huge whiskers meeting under his chin, entered.
His eye at once fell upon the dark man, whom he saluted familiarly— “All ready, Mr Cupples?”
“All ready, sir,” replied the other; “it’s now more than half-flood; in three hours we can drop down the river with the first of the ebb, and if this breeze holds we’ll be in blue water before noon to-morrow.”