umphant over the
broad-backed billow that had struck her, and dived ponderously into the
valley of waters beyond.
"Don't you think," said the young soldier, whose general knowledge was a
little more extensive than that of the seaman, "that the Gulf Stream may
have something to do with it?"
Molloy looked at the deck with philosophically solemn countenance.
Deriving no apparent inspiration from that quarter, he gazed on the
tumultuous chaos of salt-water with a perplexed expression. Finally and
gravely he shook his weather-beaten head--
"Can't see that nohow," he said. "In course I knows that the Gulf
Stream comes out the Gulf o' Mexico, cuts across the Atlantic in a
nor'-easterly direction, goes slap agin the west of England, Ireland,
and Scotland, and then scurries away up the coast o' Norway--though
_why_ it should do so is best known to itself; p'r'aps it's arter the
fashion of an angry woman, accordin' to its own sweet will; but what has
that got for to do wi' the Bay of Biscay O? That's wot I wants to
know."
"More to do with it than you think, Jack," answered the soldier. "In
the first place, you're not quite, though partly, correct about the Gulf
Stream--"
"Well, I ain't zactly a scienkrific stoodent, you know. Don't purfess
to be."
"Just so, Jack. Neither am I, but I have inquired into this matter in a
general way, an' here's _my_ notions about it."
"Draw it fine, Willum; don't be flowery," said the sailor, renewing his
quid. "Moreover, if you'll take the advice of an old salt you'll keep a
tighter grip o' that belayin'-pin you've got hold of, unless you wants
to be washed overboard. Now then, fire away! I'm all attention, as the
cat said at the mouth o' the mouse-hole."
"Well, then," began Armstrong, with the slightly conscious air of
superior knowledge, "the Gulf Stream does _not_ rise in the Gulf of
Mexico--"
"Did I say that it did, Willum?"
"Well, you said that it _came out of_ the Gulf of Mexico--and, no doubt,
so far you are right, but what I mean is that it does not originate
there."
"W'y don't you say what you mean, then, Willum, instead o' pitchin' into
a poor chap as makes no pretence to be a purfessor? Heave ahead!"
"Well, Jack," continued the soldier, with more care as to his
statements, "I believe, on the best authority, that the Gulf Stream is
only part of a great ocean current which originates at the equator, and
a small bit of which flows north into the Atlant
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