FullReads

“I will see that he is attended to, colonel,” replied the captain as he bowed them out of his office.

But, as a murder charge is not always the best way to discredit a man; and as the captain did not believe that the man who had defied him would murder a child; and as the charge would be difficult to prove in any case, and would cause him much trouble and annoyance, he did not order the arrest of John Rowland, but merely directed that, for the time, he should be kept at work by day in the ‘tween-deck, out of sight of the passengers.

Rowland, surprised at his sudden transfer from the disagreeable scrubbing to a “soldier’s job” of painting life-buoys in the warm ‘tween-deck, was shrewd enough to know that he was being closely watched by the boatswain that morning, but not shrewd enough to affect any symptoms of intoxication or drugging, which might have satisfied his anxious superiors and brought him more whisky. As a result of his brighter eyes and steadier voice–due to the curative sea air–when he turned out for the first dog-watch on deck at four o’clock, the captain and boatswain held an interview in the chart-room, in which the former said: “Do not be alarmed. It is not poison. He is half-way into the horrors now, and this will merely bring them on. He will see snakes, ghosts, goblins, shipwrecks, fire, and all sorts of things. It works in two or three hours. Just drop it into his drinking pot while the port forecastle is empty.”

There was a fight in the port forecastle–to which Rowland belonged–at supper-time, which need not be described beyond mention of the fact that Rowland, who was not a participant, had his pot of tea dashed from his hand before he had taken three swallows. He procured a fresh supply and finished his supper; then, taking no part in his watchmates’ open discussion of the fight, and guarded discussion of collisions, rolled into his bunk and smoked until eight bells, when he turned out with the rest.

CHAPTER VI

“Rowland,” said the big boatswain, as the watch mustered on deck; “take the starboard bridge lookout.”

“It is not my trick, boats’n,” said Rowland, in surprise.

“Orders from the bridge. Get up there.”

Rowland grumbled, as sailors may when aggrieved, and obeyed. The man he relieved reported his name, and disappeared; the first officer sauntered down the bridge, uttered the official, “keep a good lookout,” and returned to his post; then the silence and loneliness of a night-watch at sea, intensified by the never-ceasing hum of the engines, and relieved only by the sounds of distant music and laughter from the theater, descended on the forward part of the ship. For the fresh westerly wind, coming with the Titan, made nearly a calm on her deck; and the dense fog, though overshone by a bright star-specked sky, was so chilly that the last talkative passenger had fled to the light and life within.

When three bells–half-past nine–had sounded, and Rowland had given in his turn the required call–“all’s well”–the first officer left his post and approached him.

“Rowland,” he said as he drew near; “I hear you’ve walked the quarter-deck.”

“I cannot imagine how you learned it, sir,” replied Rowland; “I am not in the habit of referring to it.”

“You told the captain. I suppose the curriculum is as complete at Annapolis as at the Royal Naval College. What do you think of Maury’s theories of currents?”

“They seem plausible,” said Rowland, unconsciously dropping the “sir”; “but I think that in most particulars he has been proven wrong.”

“Yes, I think so myself. Did you ever follow up another idea of his–that of locating the position of ice in a fog by the rate of decrease in temperature as approached?”

“Not to any definite result. But it seems to be only a matter of calculation, and time to calculate. Cold is negative heat, and can be treated like radiant energy, decreasing as the square of the distance.”