The captain smiled and made a gesture of deprecation, but his eyes told us that he meant that watch should be his, and presently he went below to give directions to the chief engineer. From that moment the black smoke rolled out of the funnel thicker than before, hanging over the steamer’s wake clear to the horizon.
The record-breaker contemplated it and the unrippled seas with joy.
We went up into the fo’c’s’le, and as we leaned over the bow and saw the speed at which the sharp prow was cleaving the glassy water, sending thin feathers of spray high up along the steamer’s trim and tapering sides, his enthusiasm knew no bounds, and his praises of “God’s country” and his wife became almost dithyrambic.
All next day, as we steamed past the archipelago of rocks and barren islands that fringes the coast of Korea, the sea remained calm as a pond, and when at half-past six o’clock on Thursday morning we dropped anchor off the quarantine station at Nagasaki all doubt seemed to be at an end. There was some delay, however, as, though the doctors quickly came on board, made their examinations, and gave us a clean bill of health, it takes time to get under way again, enter the harbour, and take up a berth amongst the shipping this bustling port always contains. We anchored at seven-twenty. The record-breaker knew nothing about the place, and it is a long way to the station. I knew it well, however, and, as I felt as keen on his catching that train as he did himself, I chartered a sampan and had all our luggage lowered into it, whilst he went up on to the bridge to express his thanks and present the watch to the captain. I saw him take it from his pocket and make a little speech as he handed it over, and I saw the captain bow his thanks. Then he shook hands, and in another moment he was beside me and we were being rapidly pulled to the landing-place, or hatoba.
“’AIN’T IT A BEAUTY?’ AND HE HELD IT OUT FOR ADMIRATION.”
There was not a moment to lose. It was past seven-thirty, and a good twenty minutes to the station. Hastily bidding the sampan to wait with my luggage, I engaged rickshaws and we were off at full speed. We reached the station at seven-fifty-five. Having Japanese money on me I paid the rickshaws, whilst he bought his ticket with money he had got exchanged by the steamer’s purser.
He hastily shook hands, thanked me, and got into the train just one moment before it left.
The watch had really done it, but by actually less than a minute, and if I had not been there to help him he would have failed after all. He promised to write me from Yokohama, but this he never did. The last I saw of him he was waving his hat out of the window to me till the train was out of sight.
The last I heard of him was a few weeks later, when I read in an American Press telegram that he had won his spurs and had beaten the previous best round the world by exactly twelve days.