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
seamanship is astonishing. 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.

"It isn't my secret," said Mr. Chalk. "So far as I'm concerned I'd tell
you with pleasure."

The cap