"You"ve forgotten, Tammy," I said. "Even if I could get the Old Man to believe I"d got at the truth of the matter, he couldn"t do anything.
Don"t you see, if I"m right, we couldn"t even see the land, if we made it. We"re like blind men...."
"What on earth do you mean?" he interrupted. "How do you make out we"re like blind men? Of course we could see the land--"
"Wait a minute! wait a minute!" I said. "You don"t understand. Didn"t I tell you?"
"Tell what?" he asked.
"About the ship I spotted," I said. "I thought you knew!"
"No," he said. "When?"
"Why," I replied. "You know when the Old Man sent me away from the wheel?"
"Yes," he answered. "You mean in the morning watch, day before yesterday?"
"Yes," I said. "Well, don"t you know what was the matter?"
"No," he replied. "That is, I heard you were snoozing at the wheel, and the Old Man came up and caught you."
"That"s all a darned silly yarn!" I said. And then I told him the whole truth of the affair. After I had done that, I explained my idea about it, to him.
"Now you see what I mean?" I asked.
"You mean that this strange atmosphere--or whatever it is--we"re in, would not allow us to see another ship?" he asked, a bit awestruck.
"Yes," I said. "But the point I wanted you to see, is that if we can"t see another vessel, even when she"s quite close, then, in the same way, we shouldn"t be able to see land. To all intents and purposes we"re blind. Just you think of it! We"re out in the middle of the briny, doing a sort of eternal blind man"s hop. The Old Man couldn"t put into port, even if he wanted to. He"d run us bang on sh.o.r.e, without our ever seeing it."
"What are we going to do, then?" he asked, in a despairing sort of way.
"Do you mean to say we can"t do anything? Surely something can be done!
It"s terrible!"
For perhaps a minute, we walked up and down, in the light from the different lanterns. Then he spoke again.
"We might be run down, then," he said, "and never even see the other vessel?"
"It"s possible," I replied. "Though, from what I saw, it"s evident that _we"re_ quite visible; so that it would be easy for them to see us, and steer clear of us, even though we couldn"t see them."
"And we might run into something, and never see it?" he asked me, following up the train of thought.
"Yes," I said. "Only there"s nothing to stop the other ship from getting out of our way."
"But if it wasn"t a vessel?" he persisted. "It might be an iceberg, or a rock, or even a derelict."
"In that case," I said, putting it a bit flippantly, naturally, "we"d probably damage it."
He made no answer to this and for a few moments, we were quiet.
Then he spoke abruptly, as though the idea had come suddenly to him.
"Those lights the other night!" he said. "Were they a ship"s lights?"
"Yes," I replied. "Why?"
"Why," he answered. "Don"t you see, if they were really lights, we _could_ see them?"
"Well, I should think I ought to know that," I replied. "You seem to forget that the Second Mate slung me off the look-out for daring to do that very thing."
"I don"t mean that," he said. "Don"t you see that if we could see them at all, it showed that the atmosphere-thing wasn"t round us then?"
"Not necessarily," I answered. "It may have been nothing more than a rift in it; though, of course, I may be all wrong. But, anyway, the fact that the lights disappeared almost as soon as they were seen, shows that it was very much round the ship."
That made him feel a bit the way I did, and when next he spoke, his tone had lost its hopefulness.
"Then you think it"ll be no use telling the Second Mate and the Skipper anything?" he asked.
"I don"t know," I replied. "I"ve been thinking about it, and it can"t do any harm. I"ve a very good mind to."
"I should," he said. "You needn"t be afraid of anybody laughing at you, now. It might do some good. You"ve seen more than anyone else."
He stopped in his walk, and looked round.
"Wait a minute," he said, and ran aft a few steps. I saw him look up at the break of the p.o.o.p; then he came back.
"Come along now," he said. "The Old Man"s up on the p.o.o.p, talking to the Second Mate. You"ll never get a better chance."
Still I hesitated; but he caught me by the sleeve, and almost dragged me to the lee ladder.
"All right," I said, when I got there. "All right, I"ll come. Only I"m hanged if I know what to say when I get there."
"Just tell them you want to speak to them," he said. "They"ll ask what you want, and then you spit out all you know. They"ll find it interesting enough."
"You"d better come too," I suggested. "You"ll be able to back me up in lots of things."
"I"ll come, fast enough," he replied. "You go up."
I went up the ladder, and walked across to where the Skipper and the Second Mate stood talking earnestly, by the rail. Tammy kept behind. As I came near to them, I caught two or three words; though I attached no meaning then to them. They were: "...send for him." Then the two of them turned and looked at me, and the Second Mate asked what I wanted.
"I want to speak to you and the Old M--Captain, Sir," I answered.
"What is it, Jessop?" the Skipper inquired.
"I scarcely know how to put it, Sir," I said. "It"s--it"s about these-- these things."
"What things? Speak out, man," he said.
"Well, Sir," I blurted out. "There"s some dreadful thing or things come aboard this ship, since we left port."
I saw him give one quick glance at the Second Mate, and the Second looked back.