"You may get into such a mess that you will find it hard to get out of it."
"All goes well at present."
The doctor's eyes were fixed on the north-east. The skipper continued,—
"Let us once reach the Gulf of Gascony, and I answer for our safety. Ah! I should say I am at home there. I know it well, my Gulf of Gascony. It is a little basin, often very boisterous; but there, I know every sounding in it and the nature of the bottom—mud opposite San Cipriano, shells opposite Cizarque, sand off Cape Peñas, little pebbles off Boncaut de Mimizan, and I know the colour of every pebble."
The skipper broke off; the doctor was no longer listening.
The doctor gazed at the north-east. Over that icy face passed an extraordinary expression. All the agony of terror possible to a mask of stone was depicted there. From his mouth escaped this word, "Good!"
His eyeballs, which had all at once become quite round like an owl's, were dilated with stupor on discovering a speck on the horizon. He added,—
"It is well. As for me, I am resigned."
The skipper looked at him. The doctor went on talking to himself, or to some one in the deep,—
"I say, Yes."