"Like it!" repeated the captain. "O' course you do; you've got the salt in your blood, but this peaceful cruising is beginning to tell on you. There's a touch o' wildness in you, sir, that's always struggling to come to the front. Peter Duckett was saying the same thing only the other day. He's very uneasy about it."
"Uneasy!" repeated Mr. Chalk.
"Aye," said the captain, drawing a deep breath. "And if I tell you that I am too, it wouldn't be outside the truth."
"But why?" inquired Mr. Chalk, after they had paced once up and down the deck in silence.
"It's the mystery we don't like," said Brisket, at last. "How are we to know what desperate venture you are going to let us in for? Follow you faithful we will, but we don't like going in the dark; it ain't quite fair to us."
"There's not the slightest danger in the world," said Mr. Chalk, with impressive earnestness.
"But there's a mystery; you can't deny that," said the captain.
Mr. Chalk cleared his throat. "It's a secret," he said, slowly.
"From me?" inquired the captain, in reproachful accents.
"It isn't my secret," said Mr. Chalk. "So far as I'm concerned I'd tell you with pleasure."