Dialstone Lane, Part 5 by W.W. Jacobs

Month by month the _Fair Emily_ crept down south. The Great Bear and / other constellations gave way to the stars of the southern skies, and Mr. / Chalk tried hard not to feel disappointed with the arrangement of those / in the Southern Cross. Pressed by the triumphant Brisket, to whom he / voiced his views, he had to admit that it was at least as much like a / cross as the other was a bear.

As they got farther south he had doffed his jersey and sea boots in / favour of a drill suit and bare feet. In this costume, surmounted by a / Panama hat, he was the only thing aboard that afforded the slightest / amusement to Mr. Stobell, whose temper was suffering severely under a / long spell of monotonous idleness, and whose remarks concerning the sea / and everything in connection with it were so strangely out of keeping / with the idea of a pleasure cruise that Mr. Tredgold lectured him / severely on his indiscretion.

"Stobell is no more doing this for pleasure than I am," said Captain / Brisket to Mr. Duckett. "It's something big that's brought him all this / way, you mark my words."

The mate nodded acquiescence. "What about Mr. Chalk? " he said, in a low / voice. "Can't you get it out of him?"

"Shuts up like an oyster directly I get anywhere near it," replied the / captain; "sticks to it that it is a yachting trip and that Tredgold is / studying the formations of islands. Says he has got a list of them he is / going to visit."

"Mr. Tredgold was talking the same way to me," said the mate. "He says / he's going to write a book about them when he goes back. He asked me / what I thought'ud be a good title."

"I know what would be a good title for him," growled Brisket, as Mr. / Stobell came on deck and gazed despondently over the side. "We're / getting towards the end of our journey, sir."

"End? " said Mr. Stobell. "End? I don't believe there is an end. I / believe you've lost your way and we shall go sailing on and on for ever."

He walked aft and, placing himself in a deckchair, gazed listlessly at / the stolid figure of the helmsman. The heat was intense, and both / Tredgold and Chalk had declined to proceed with a conversation limited / almost entirely on his side to personal abuse. He tried the helmsman, / and made that unfortunate thirsty for a week by discussing the rival / merits of bitter ale in a pewter and stout in a china mug. The helmsman, / a man of liberal ideas, said, with some emotion, that he could drink / either of them out of a flower-pot.

Mr. Chalk became strangely restless as they neared their goal. He had / come thousands of miles and had seen nothing fresh with the exception of / a few flying-fish, an albatross, and a whale blowing in the distance. / Pacing the deck late one night with Captain Brisket he expressed mild / yearnings for a little excitement.

"You want adventure," said the captain, shaking his head at him. "I know / you. Ah, what a sailorman you'd ha' made. With a crew o' six like / yourself I'd take this little craft anywhere. The way you pick up / seamanship is astonishing. Peter Duckett swears you must ha' been at sea / as a boy, and all I can do I can't persuade him otherwise."

"I always had a feeling that I should like it," said Mr. Chalk, modestly.

"Like it! " repeated the captain. "O' course you do; you've got the salt / in your blood, but this peaceful cruising is beginning to tell on you. / There's a touch o' wildness in you, sir, that's always struggling to come / to the front. Peter Duckett was saying the same thing only the other / day. He's very uneasy about it."

"Uneasy! " repeated Mr. Chalk.

"Aye," said the captain, drawing a deep breath. "And if I tell you that / I am too, it wouldn't be outside the truth."

"But why? " inquired Mr. Chalk, after they had paced once up and down the / deck in silence.

"It's the mystery we don't like," said Brisket, at last. "How are we to / know what desperate venture you are going to let us in for? Follow you / faithful we will, but we don't like going in the dark; it ain't quite / fair to us."

"There's not the slightest danger in the world," said Mr. Chalk, with / impressive earnestness.

"But there's a mystery; you can't deny that," said the captain.

Mr. Chalk cleared his throat. "It's a secret," he said, slowly.