In fact I had just then caught sight, away down in the south amidst the haziness there, of some bronze streaks stretching from south-east to south-west, with here and there dashes of exceedingly faint shadow of the colour of flint. Much looking was not needful; it was quickly to be seen that right astern of our course, though as the yacht lay just then the appearance was off the starboard beam, there had gathered and was slowly mounting a long, heavy body of thunderous cloud scarce visible as yet save in its few bronze outlines.
‘It will mean a change I hope,’ said I to Crimp; ‘more than mere thunder and lightning, let us pray. Yet the drop in the glass is scarcely noticeable.’
‘Time something happened anyway,’ said he. ‘Dum me if it ain’t been too hot even for the sharks to show themselves. I allow the “’Liza Robbins” ain’t over sweet just now.’
‘No, I’d rather be you than your brother to-day, Crimp.’
‘Sorry to hear from the captain,’ said he, ‘that Sir Wilfrid’s got the notion in his head that he’s growed in the night till he’s too tall to stand upright.’
‘Yes,’ said I, ‘and I hope his craze may end at that.’
‘There’s but one cure for the likes of such tantrums,’ said he.
‘And pray what is that, Mr. Crimp?’
‘Fright. Git the hair of a chap that’s mad to stand on end, and see if his crazes don’t fly clean off out of it like cannon balls out of a broadside of guns.’
‘Ay, but fright, as you call it, might drive my poor cousin entirely mad, Mr. Crimp.’