“This is a pretty state of things,” said Girdlestone.  “How is it that I have not been informed of it before!  It is most dangerous.”

“Informed!” cried Miggs.  “Informed of it!  Has there been a v’yage yet that I haven’t come to ye, Muster Girdlestone, and told ye I was surprised ever to find myself back in Lunnon?  A year agone I told ye how this ship was, and ye laughed at me, ye did.  It’s only when ye find yourselves on her in the middle o’ the broad sea that ye understan’ what it is that sailor folk have to put up wi’.”

Girdlestone was about to make some angry reply to this address, but his son put his hand on his arm to restrain him.  It would never do to quarrel with Hamilton Miggs before they reached their port of refuge.  They were too completely in his power.

“What the captain says has a great deal of truth in it,” he remarked, with a laugh.  “You don’t realize a thing until you’ve had to experience it.  The Black Eagle shall certainly have an overhauling next time, and we’ll see if we can’t give her captain an increase at the same time.”

Miggs gave a grunt which, might be taken as expressing thanks or as signifying doubt.  Perhaps there was a mixture of both in his mind.

“I presume,” Girdlestone said, in a conciliatory voice, “that there would be no real danger as long as the weather was fine?”

“It won’t be fine long,” the captain answered gruffly.  “The glass was well under thirty when I come up, and it is fallin’ fast.  I’ve been about here before at this time o’ year in a calm, with a ground swell and a sinkin’ glass.  No good ever came of it.  Look there at the norrard.  What d’ye make o’ that, Sandy?”

“In conjunction wi’ the descending glass, it has an ominous appairance,” the Scotchman answered, with much stress on the first syllable of the adjective.

The phenomenon which had attracted their professional attention did not appear to either of the Girdlestones to be a very important one.  The haze on the horizon to the north was rather thicker than elsewhere, and a few thin streaky clouds straggled upwards across the clear cold heaven, like the feelers of some giant octopus which lay behind the fog bank.  At the same time the sea changed in places from the appearance of quicksilver to that of grained glass.

“There’s the wind,” Miggs said confidently.  “I’d furl the top-gallant sails and get her stay-sails down, Mr. McPherson.”  Whenever he gave an order he was careful to give the mate his full title, though at other times he called him indiscriminately Sandy or Mac.

The mate gave the necessary commands, while Miggs dived down into the cabin.  He came up again looking even graver than when he left the deck.

“The glass is nearly down to twenty-eight,” he said.  “I never seed it as low since I’ve been at sea.  Take in the mains’l, Mr. McPherson, and have the topsails reefed down!”