‘What’s the “Shark’s” figure-head?’
‘A gold ball in a cup shaped like a lily, your honour.’
‘Then, Wilfrid,’ I cried, shoving the glass into his hands, ‘your pursuit must carry you further afield yet, for that craft’s figure-head is a white effigy, apparently a woman’s head.’
His manner to the sudden, desperate surging of the disappointment in him fell in a breath into the old form of the craziness of his moods of excitement. He looked through the glass, and then roared out—
‘Finn.’
The skipper came bundling over to us.
‘That vessel is not the “Shark.”’
‘I’ve been afeared not, sir, I’ve been afeared not,’ said Finn. ‘Like as two eggs end on; but now she’s drawed out—’tain’t only the figure-head. She han’t got the “Shark’s” length of bowsprit.’
Wilfrid dashed the telescope down on to the deck. ‘A fool’s chase!’ he exclaimed, scarcely intelligible for the way he spoke with his teeth set. ‘Heavenly God, what a disappointment! But it should have been Monday, it should have been Monday,’ and his gaze went in a scowling, wandering way from us to the schooner.
‘I suppose you know,’ said I to Finn, ‘that they’re standing by to lower a boat when we shall have come to a stand?’