‘I would rather not do so,’ she answered, her fine face looking curiously pale in that dull light, whilst she glanced restlessly towards the state cabin. She pulled out a little watch. ‘It is certainly time to return to the Indiaman,’ she added.
‘Oh, but don’t let us leave all this noble drink to go down to the bottom of the sea,’ cried Colledge. ‘Is there nothing that we can pack some of the bottles in? If we could only manage to get away with a couple of dozen—twelve for ourselves and twelve for my cousin?’—and with red face and bright eyes he went staggering with the heave of the hull to the shelves and stood holding on, looking about him.
‘It might be managed, I think,’ said the lieutenant, who seemed all anxiety to oblige him.
‘I wish to be gone,’ exclaimed Miss Temple with a strong hint of the imperiousness that had been familiar to me in the Indiaman in the air with which she looked at and addressed the lieutenant. ‘What is the meaning of this increased rolling? I shall not be able to enter the boat.’
‘No fear of that, madam,’ answered the lieutenant; ‘a dismasted egg-shell like this will roll to the weakest heave. A trifle more swell has certainly set in, but it is nothing.’
I was not so sure of that. What he was pleased to describe as a trifling increase was to my mind, and very distinctly too, a heightening and broadening of the undulations, of which the significance was rendered strong by the suddenness of the thing. It meant wind close at hand, I could swear.
‘I’ll go on deck and see how things are,’ said I.
‘Take me with you, Mr. Dugdale,’ exclaimed Miss Temple.
‘You will suffer me to assist you?’ said the lieutenant.
‘Oh, I say, don’t leave all this wine here,’ cried Colledge. ‘Mr.—I mean Lieutenant—upon my word, I must apologise for not having asked your name—can’t we manage to find some old basket’——