Down to the latitude of the Falkland Islands we had sighted, from the hour of my taking command of the barque, but four sail, so vast is the ocean, and so minute a speck does a ship make upon it. But whilst the loom of the land about Berkeley Sound was hanging in a blue and windy shadow, with a gleam as of snow upon it away out upon our starboard beam, we fell in with a whaler, a vessel rigged as ours was; a round-bowed, motherly old craft, jogging along under a load of boats suspended over her sides from the extremities of thick wooden davits. There was a long Atlantic swell running, and as she rose and rolled to it, she showed a line of green sheathing dark with moss and barnacles and lines of trailing weeds.
She had been visible at daybreak right ahead, and she was clear upon the sea over our bow, when I came on deck shortly after eight bells to relieve Lush, who had had the watch since four o’clock.
‘What have we there?’ said I, bringing Braine’s old leather telescope out of the companion and putting my eye to it. ‘A squab old whaler, as I may suppose by her boats; Cape Horn topgallant-masts; a sawed-off square sea-wagon after the true Nantucket pattern.’
‘I’ve been a-waiting for you to come on deck,’ said the carpenter. ‘We don’t want to run her down. We’ve got nothen to say to her, and so ‘ud better keep out of hail. Shift the course, will you, sir?’
There was nothing in the sir to qualify the offensive tone of command with which he addressed me. I looked at him fixedly, taking care, however, to keep a good grip on my temper.
‘What are you afraid of?’ I asked. ‘Are any of the crew likely to hail her if we pass within speaking distance?’
‘I’d like to know what man there is amongst us as ‘ud have the courage to do it,’ he exclaimed, his face darkening to the thought, and his eyes travelling up and down my body, as though in search of some part on which to settle.
‘Why do you wait for me to shift the helm, man?’ said I.
‘The navigation’s in your hands,’ he answered sullenly; ‘if your calculations don’t turn out correct, it musn’t be because of any man a-meddling with the course whilst you was below.’
Miss Temple at this moment arrived on deck and joined me.