He directed his gaze in a mechanical way towards the quarter in which I was looking, but said nothing. Miss Jennings came out of the companion. I took her hand and brought her to the grating.
‘A strange, oppressive calm,’ she cried; ‘how sickly the sunshine is! Nature looks to be in as dull a mood as we are.’
‘Wilf,’ said I, ‘if that schooner is the “Shark,” what will you do?’
‘What would you do?’ he answered sternly, as though he imagined I quizzed him, when God knows I was in a more sober and anxious humour than I can express.
‘Well,’ said I very quietly and gravely, ‘when I got my yacht within reach of her glasses, if I could manage it, I should signal that I wanted to speak her.’
‘Quite right; that’s what I shall do,’ said he.
‘But after!’ I exclaimed.
‘After what?’ he cried.
‘Why, confound it, Wilf, suppose she makes no response, holds on all, as we say at sea, and bowls along without taking the slightest notice of us.’
He approached me close, laid his great hand upon my shoulder and thrust his long arm forth straight as a handspike pointing to the forecastle gun. ‘There’s my answer to that,’ he cried in my ear in a voice as disagreeable as the sound of a saw with irritability; ‘you wished me to strike it down into the hold, d’ye remember? you were for ridiculing it from the moment of your catching sight of it; yet without that messenger to deliver my mind what answer would there be to the question you have just now put? Oh my God,’ he suddenly cried, smiting his forehead, ‘I feel as if I shall go mad.’