“Out of the Channel?” I cried. “Do you sail by witchcraft? What time is it, pray?”
“A few minutes after eleven.”
“You were off Margate this morning at daybreak,” said I, “and now, at a few minutes after eleven o’clock, you are out of the Channel?”
“I was off Margate three days ago at daybreak,” he answered.
“Have I been insensible three days? It is news to strike the breath out of a man. Three days! Of course the Royal Brunswicker has arrived in the Thames and—— Out of the Channel, do you say? How am I to get ashore?”
“We will talk about that presently.”
I lay speechless, with my eyes fastened upon the beam above the hammock.
“You have talked enough,” said Captain Greaves; “yet there is one question I should like to ask, if you have breath enough to answer it with: How came you to hear that this brig’s name is the Black Watch?”
“I read of the brig in an old newspaper that I was hunting over for news at my uncle’s house last evening.”
“Not last evening,” said he, smiling.