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It is in the conditions of Nature that this ship should reach port in eight days, otherwise we should get nowhere. We do it because it is our destiny." "I am not so sure of that," said Gissing. But the Captain had already departed with a clouded brow. On the chart-room roof Gissing had discovered an alluring instrument, the exact use of which he did not know.
On either side of the latter two doors opened into a tiny hallway. This, in turn, gave access to the chart-room and to a stairway that led down into the cabin quarters beneath. I peeped into the chart-room and was greeted with a smile by Captain West. He was lolling back comfortably in a swing chair, his feet cocked on the desk opposite. On a broad, upholstered couch sat the pilot.
Lively, if you don't want to swim! Come in, port-braces! Don't let 'm get away! Lee-braces! if you lose that turn I'll split your skull! Lively! Lively! Is that helm hard over! Why in hell don't you answer?" All this I heard as I dashed for the lee door and as I wondered why I did not hear the Samurai's voice. Then, as I passed the chart-room door, I saw him.
She had followed the discussion in the chart-room with full appreciation of its significance. Valuable as the ship and cargo were, there was far more at stake in the effect of the loss on the copper markets of the world. The most important copper-exporting firm in Chile would practically be ruined, while the Paris "ring," of which she had read in the newspapers, would have matters its own way.
On the bridge, boy! Go on get. Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones will you? "This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady.
"You said you 'might have been' in the chart-room at two o'clock." "I have said I was ill. I might have done almost anything." "That is exactly what we are getting at, Mr. Turner. Going back to the 30th of July, when you were not ill, did you have any words with the captain?" "We had a few. He was exceeding his authority." "Do you recall what you said?" "I was indignant." "Think again, Mr. Turner.
All these events had taken place many years before the morning when, in the chart-room of the steamer Nan-Shan, he stood confronted by the fall of a barometer he had no reason to distrust.
The first morning in any new environment is always the most exciting. Gissing was already awake, and watching the novel sight of a patch of sunshine sliding to and fro on the deck of the chart-room, when there was a gentle tap at the door. The Captain's steward entered, carrying a handsome uniform. "Six bells, sir," he said. "Your bath is laid on."
"Velly good," he murmured, in a disconsolate undertone, and hastened smoothly along the decks, dodging obstacles in his course. He disappeared, ducking low under a sling of ten dirty gunny-bags full of some costly merchandise and exhaling a repulsive smell. Captain MacWhirr meantime had gone on the bridge, and into the chart-room, where a letter, commenced two days before, awaited termination.
'Ten minutes to three, and I'd just got to sleep! I growled about the light, and she put it out, after she had thrown on a wrapper. The room was dark when she opened the door. There was a little light in the chart-room, from the binnacle lantern. The door at the top of the companionway was always closed at night; the light came through the window near the wheel."
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