‘What news in the name of heaven? Quick, now, like a dear boy!’
‘There’s a schooner-yacht uncommonly like your “Shark” away down on the lee bow visible from aloft.’
He whipped his other leg out of bed and sat bold upright. I had expected some extravagance of behaviour in him on his hearing this, but greatly to my surprise he sat silent in his bunk eyeing me, his brow dark and his lips moving for several seconds, which might have been minutes for the time they seemed to run into.
‘What is to-day, Charles?’
‘Thursday.’
‘Ha! It should be Monday. That light last night was an omen, as I told you. I knew some great event could not be far off.’ His eyes kindled under their quivering lids and an odd smile twisted his mouth into the expression of a sarcastic grin. It was as ugly a look in him as I had ever seen, and it gained heavily in the effect it produced by his comparatively quiet manner.
‘We are heading directly for her, of course?’
‘Finn has her about two points on the lee bow,’ said I.
‘Will that do?’ he exclaimed.
‘Why, yes; hold a weather-gage of the chase, it is said; though I think we shall be having a northerly blast upon us before the sun touches his meridian.’