as I answered--

"I presume, sir, that it will be heard of first when it enters
Queenstown Harbour."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the angry little man, "I knew you would say that.
Don't you kick me under the table, Flannigan, I won't stand it. I know
what I am doing. You are wrong, sir," he continued, turning to me,
"utterly wrong."

"Some passing ship, perhaps," suggested Dick.

"No, nor that either."

"The weather is fine," I said; "why should we not be heard of at our
destination."

"I didn't say we shouldn't be heard of at our destination. Possibly we
may not, and in any case that is not where we shall be heard of first."

"Where then?" asked Dick.

"That you shall never know. Suffice it that a rapid and mysterious
agency will signal our whereabouts, and that before the day is out. Ha,
ha!" and he chuckled once again.

"Come on deck!" growled his comrade; "you have drunk too much of that
confounded brandy-and-water. It has loosened your tongue. Come away!"
and taking him by the arm he half led him, half forced him out of the
smoking-room, and we heard them stumbling up the companion together, and
on to the deck.

"Well, what do you think now?" I gasped, as I turned towards Dick. He
was as imperturbable as ever.

"Think!" he said; "why, I think what his companion thinks, that we have
been listening to the ravings of a half-drunken man. The fellow stunk of
brandy."

"Nonsense, Dick I you saw how the other tried to stop his tongue."

"Of course he did. He didn't want his friend to make a fool of himself
before strangers. Maybe the short one is a lunatic, and the other his
private keeper. It's quite possible."

"O Dick, Dick," I cried, "how can you be so blind! Don't you see that
every word confirmed our previous suspicion?"

"Humbug, man!" said Dick; "you're working yourself into a state of
nervous excitement. Why, what the devil do you make of all that nonsense
about a mysterious agent which would signal our whereabouts?"

"I'll tell you what he meant, Dick," I said, bending forward and
grasping my friend's arm. "He meant a sudden glare and a flash seen far
out at sea by some lonely fisherman off the American coast. That's what
he meant."

"I didn't think you were such a fool, Hammond," said Dick Merton
testily. "If you try to fix a literal meaning on the twaddle that every
drunken man talks, you will come to some queer conclusions. Let us
follow their example, and go on deck. You need fresh air, I think