Meacock went in to take a
bearing. The bearing he got nonplussed him, and he got Mead to try. Mead
also found the needle giving strange evidence. Suddenly it dawned upon
them that its delusion was due to a tremendous dagger worn by the very
small and keenly occupied Tich.

The _Bonadventure_ maintained her mended pace, and also her awkward
list, which conspired with a strong swell; thus it was that the "fiddle"
so necessary to the safety of cups and plates in the Bay of Biscay
reappeared at this late stage. The nights were beautiful, with their white
moon and moonlight far over the water, their stars, few, and of the
moon's glowing whiteness, the light veilings of cloud blown in silence
about the sky, and little else heard except the subdued measure of the
ship's engines, the lapping repulse of waves from the bows, and the
sharp call of birds ahead and astern. Well might Mead be glad of his
roving temperament, as on his watch we talked and smoked above the
expanse of rimpled water, and looked towards the sword-like lightnings
in the south.

XIII

We came into grey waters, and also into a grey sort of day, overcast and
moody. In the evening the wind was strong from the land, and laden with
that earthy scent which had so surprised me when I first encountered it;
a languid, rich and beguiling perfume, that is tomb-like and unnerving in
its suggestion, rising over us. It made out for me the spirit of Tom
Hood's last song, if it was his last song; the one beginning "Farewell,
life, my senses swim"; its first verse ending "I smell the Mould above the
Rose," and its second, "I smell the Rose above the Mould."

Hosea engaged me in discussion of Tennyson and Edwin Arnold. He had been
carrying out a lively campaign in his room, where an unwelcome insect
had appeared lately; one would have doubted whether any insect, however
irrepressible, could have existed in the atmosphere of cigar smoke which
he daily thickened in that room of his. But there it was, the bug had been
seen, and the whole room was overhauled.

This did not in any way deflect him from his evening pursuit of the
abstract. His resolution in following a problem through its own difficult
aspects, combined with his control of the _Bonadventure_, often made me
wonder whether he was typical of his fellow-captains. Though, as he said,
the roaring-bull style of master mariner was almost extinct, I could not
help thinking him singular.

I woke at about four,