I say I thought I smelt tobacco; but this, of course, was my imagination supplying all the links from one.
CHAPTER IV
THE SILENT SEA
Remember (if indeed there be any need to remind you) that it is a flagrant landsman who is telling you this tale. Nothing know I of seamanship, save what one could not avoid picking up on the round voyage of the Lady Jermyn, never to be completed on this globe. I may be told that I have burned that devoted vessel as nothing ever burned on land or sea. I answer
Keep your heads and listen to me. There’s two good boats on the davits amidships; the chief will take one, the second officer the other; and there ain’t no reason why every blessed one of you shouldn’t sleep in Ascension to-morrow night. As for me, let me see every soul off of my ship and perhaps I