"By and by catch, and then the helm will be the right
way. See?"
The stolid seacannie appeared to see, and for that matter to hear,
nothing. The white man looked at the impassive Malay with disgust,
then glanced around the horizon--then again at the helmsman and ordered
curtly:
"Shift the helm back again. Don't you feel the air from aft? You are
like a dummy standing there."
The Malay revolved the spokes again with disdainful obedience, and the
red-faced man was moving forward grunting to himself, when through the
open skylight the hail "On deck there!" arrested him short, attentive,
and with a sudden change to amiability in the expression of his face.
"Yes, sir," he said, bending his ear toward the opening. "What's the
matter up there?" asked a deep voice from below.
The red-faced man in a tone of surprise said:
"Sir?"
"I hear that rudder grinding hard up and hard down. What are you up to,
Shaw? Any wind?"
"Ye-es," drawled Shaw, putting his head down the skylight and speaking
into the gloom of the cabin. "I thought there was a light air, and--but
it's gone now. Not a breath anywhere under the heavens."
He withdrew his head and waited a while by the skylight, but heard
only the chirping of the indefatigable canary, a feeble twittering that
seemed to ooze through the drooping red blossoms of geraniums growing in
flower-pots under the glass panes.
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