“I was about to question Dickens afresh when the captain rounded upon us in a very flash of white face and wild, eager manner.
“‘Try for her in fifty!’ he cried, looking at me, but as though he saw some one beyond me.
“I viewed him with silent surprise. The very memory and therefore the meaning of the words he now pronounced had gone out of my head, and I did not understand him.
“‘Try for her in fifty!’ he repeated. ‘I know what it means.’
“He went in a sort of a run to the wheel, and brought the schooner’s head to a due southerly course, whilst he shouted in tones vibrating with the excitement that seemed like mania in the man then, with the workings of his face—I say he shouted for sail to be trimmed for the course he had brought the schooner to, and the seamen fled about the decks to my commands, alert and willing, but as astonished as I was. When sail had been trimmed the captain called to Mr. Curzon to keep her steady as she went, and requested me to follow him below.
“He stood beside the table and leaned upon it; his agitation was so extreme that I thought to see his mother in his eyes. His breathing continued distressingly laboured for some time; indeed, the emotions and passions which tore him appeared to have arrested the faculty of speech. At last he exclaimed in a voice low with religious awe, yet threaded too with a note of triumph that instantly caught my ear—
“‘Do you now guess the meaning of that dream which was three times dreamt by me?’
“Still I was at a loss and made no answer.
“‘Try for her in fifty!’ he exclaimed. ‘That was the cry I told you about. You remember the sentence, surely?’