s. One felt quite sure that Mr.
Mussey would perform duly to the letter of his covenant. It had
required only an hour of weighing and analysing with a clear head his
overtures and utterances as a whole, to persuade Lanyard that he
himself, no less than the chief engineer, in the phrase of the latter's
boast, "knew something."

It seemed unbelievably stupid and childish, what he imagined was behind
the gratuitous intermeddling of Mr. Mussey; but then, he reminded
himself, if there is anything more stupid than to plot a criminal act,
it is to permit oneself to be influenced by that criminal stupidity
whose other name is jealousy.

Well, whether he were right or wrong, the night would declare it; and
in any event there was no excuse whatever for refusing to profit by the
stupidity of men whose minds are bent on vicious mischief....

The weather thickened as the day grew older. Towards noon the wind, as
if weary and discouraged with vain endeavour to make up its mind to
blow from this quarter or that, died away altogether. At the same time
the horizon appeared to close in perceptibly; what little definition it
had had in earlier hours was erased; and the Sybarite, shearing the
oily and lifeless waters of a dead calm, seemed less to make progress
than to struggle sullenly in a pool of quicksilver at the bottom of a
slowly revolving sphere of clouded glass, mutinously aware that all her
labouring wrought no sort of gain.

After an hour of this, Captain Monk, on the bridge with Mr. Swain,
arrived at a decision of exasperation. Through the engine-room
ventilators a long jingle of the telegraph was heard; and directly the
Sybarite's pulses began to beat in quicker tempo, while darker volutes
of smoke rolled in dense volume from her funnel and streamed away
astern, resting low and preserving their individuality as long as
visible, like a streak of oxidization on a field of frosted silver. For
the first time since she had left the harbour of Cherbourg the yacht
was doing herself something like justice in the matter of speed--and
this contrary to all ethics of seamanship, on such a day.

At the luncheon table, Phinuit ventured a light-headed comment on this
dangerous procedure; whereupon Monk turned on him in a cold fury.

"As long as I'm master of this vessel, sir, I'll sail her according to
the counsels of my own discretion--and thank you to keep your
animadversions to yourself!"

"Animadversions!" Phinuit echoed, and mad