Part 36 (1/2)

CHAPTER XVIII

Month by month the Fair Emily crept down south. The Great Bear and other constellations gave way to the stars of the southern skies, and Mr.

Chalk tried hard not to feel disappointed with the arrangement of those in the Southern Cross. Pressed by the triumphant Brisket, to whom he voiced his views, he had to admit that it was at least as much like a cross as the other was a bear.

As they got farther south he had doffed his jersey and sea boots in favour of a drill suit and bare feet. In this costume, surmounted by a Panama hat, he was the only thing aboard that afforded the slightest amus.e.m.e.nt to Mr. Stobell, whose temper was suffering severely under a long spell of monotonous idleness, and whose remarks concerning the sea and everything in connection with it were so strangely out of keeping with the idea of a pleasure cruise that Mr. Tredgold lectured him severely on his indiscretion.

”Stobell is no more doing this for pleasure than I am,” said Captain Brisket to Mr. Duckett. ”It's something big that's brought him all this way, you mark my words.”

The mate nodded acquiescence. ”What about Mr. Chalk?” he said, in a low voice. ”Can't you get it out of him?”

”Shuts up like an oyster directly I get anywhere near it,” replied the captain; ”sticks to it that it is a yachting trip and that Tredgold is studying the formations of islands. Says he has got a list of them he is going to visit.”

”Mr. Tredgold was talking the same way to me,” said the mate. ”He says he's going to write a book about them when he goes back. He asked me what I thought'ud be a good t.i.tle.”

”I know what would be a good t.i.tle for him,” growled Brisket, as Mr.

Stobell came on deck and gazed despondently over the side. ”We're getting towards the end of our journey, sir.”

”End?” said Mr. Stobell. ”End? I don't believe there is an end. I believe you've lost your way and we shall go sailing on and on for ever.”

He walked aft and, placing himself in a deckchair, gazed listlessly at the stolid figure of the helmsman. The heat was intense, and both Tredgold and Chalk had declined to proceed with a conversation limited almost entirely on his side to personal abuse. He tried the helmsman, and made that unfortunate thirsty for a week by discussing the rival merits of bitter ale in a pewter and stout in a china mug. The helmsman, a man of liberal ideas, said, with some emotion, that he could drink either of them out of a flower-pot.

Mr. Chalk became strangely restless as they neared their goal. He had come thousands of miles and had seen nothing fresh with the exception of a few flying-fish, an albatross, and a whale blowing in the distance.

Pacing the deck late one night with Captain Brisket he expressed mild yearnings for a little excitement.

”You want adventure,” said the captain, shaking his head at him. ”I know you. Ah, what a sailorman you'd ha' made. With a crew o' six like yourself I'd take this little craft anywhere. The way you pick up seamans.h.i.+p is astonis.h.i.+ng. Peter Duckett swears you must ha' been at sea as a boy, and all I can do I can't persuade him otherwise.”

”I always had a feeling that I should like it,” said Mr. Chalk, modestly.

”Like it!” repeated the captain. ”O' course you do; you've got the salt in your blood, but this peaceful cruising is beginning to tell on you.

There's a touch o' wildness in you, sir, that's always struggling to come to the front. Peter Duckett was saying the same thing only the other day. He's very uneasy about it.”

”Uneasy!” repeated Mr. Chalk.

”Aye,” said the captain, drawing a deep breath. ”And if I tell you that I am too, it wouldn't be outside the truth.”

”But why?” inquired Mr. Chalk, after they had paced once up and down the deck in silence.

”It's the mystery we don't like,” said Brisket, at last. ”How are we to know what desperate venture you are going to let us in for? Follow you faithful we will, but we don't like going in the dark; it ain't quite fair to us.”

”There's not the slightest danger in the world,” said Mr. Chalk, with impressive earnestness.

”But there's a mystery; you can't deny that,” said the captain.

Mr. Chalk cleared his throat. ”It's a secret,” he said, slowly.

”From me?” inquired the captain, in reproachful accents.