After a bit, talking always as I now did on the subject of the 'Lady Emma' and our chances of finding Miss Otway alive in the wreck, I asked if the boatswain of the brig—that jumping seaman who had been whaling seven years—had ever sighted the New Orkneys?
'I didn't think of asking,' he answered, 'but I'll soon find out, sir.'
'Would you object to his coming here?'
'This is your ship, Mr. Moore.'
'I'd like to ask him some questions.'
He at once told the boy who waited on us to send Bodkin aft. In a few minutes the man came; by this time we had dined, but the captain lingered to hear what this boatswain had to say before he went on deck to send the mate to his dinner.
'I've been telling this gentleman,' said the captain, leaning his little figure against a stanchion and discharging a whole broadside of grimaces at Bodkin, who stood staring at us and around him, astonished at the summons, 'that you've been a-whaling seven years in the Pacific and Southern Ocean.'
Here Bodkin lifted his hand to his forehead in the seaman's salute to me.
'Know anything of the New Orkneys?' said the captain with nervous abruptness like the briskness of a bird.