"I don't know. There's some blame thing or
other close to us, I'll bet a hat. I don't know the name of it, but
there's a big Bird in the air, just out of sight som'eres, and," he
suddenly exclaimed, smacking his knee and leaning forward,
"I--don't--like--it--one--dam'--bit."
The same thing came up in our talk in the cabin that night, after the
dinner was taken off and we settled down to tobacco. Only, at this time,
Hardenberg was on duty on the bridge. It was Ally Bazan who spoke
instead.
"Seems to me," he hazarded, "as haow they's somethin' or other a-goin'
to bump up pretty blyme soon. I shouldn't be surprised, naow, y'know, if
we piled her up on some bally uncharted reef along o' to-night and went
strite daown afore we'd had a bloomin' charnce to s'y 'So long,
gen'lemen all.'"
He laughed as he spoke, but when, just at that moment, a pan clattered
in the galley, he jumped suddenly with an oath, and looked hard about
the cabin.
Then Strokher confessed to a sense of distress also. He'd been having it
since day before yesterday, it seemed.
"And I put it to you the glass is lovely," he said, "so it's no blow. I
guess," he continued, "we're all a bit seedy and ship-sore."
And whether or not this talk worked upon my own nerves, or whether in
very truth the Feel of the Sea had found me also, I do not know; but I
do know that after dinner that night, just before going to bed, a queer
sense of apprehension came upon me, and that when I had come to my
stateroom, after my turn upon deck, I became furiously angry with nobody
in particular, because I could not at once find the matches.
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