CHAPTER XXVI.
THE THRONE IN THE CENTRE.
Never shall I forget that row in the moonlight. It was one of those clear, soft, mysterious nights, which one sometimes gets in those latitudes, when the air seems alive with unseen things. One’s half shy of talking for fear of being overheard. I’m no hand at description, but those who have been in those parts know the sort of night I mean. I was not in a romantic mood, God knows. Nor, so far as I could see, was there much of romance about the expedition. But I had been brooding, brooding, brooding, till things had got into my blood. As I sat there in the boat I felt as if I were moving through a world of dream.
We had brought a funny crowd. At the back of my mind, and I felt sure at the back of Luke’s, was the feeling that if the thing had to be done at all then the quicker it was done the better. It was a case of taking time by the forelock. The Flying Scud had a ragged crew. The Lord alone could tell what was the nationality of most of them. Out of the bunch we had picked the best. There was the chief engineer, Isaac Rudd. He had shipped with me before. I knew him, and that he wouldn’t stick at a trifle. A man who had had to wrestle with such engines as ours wasn’t likely to. In a manner of speaking he was as deep in the ditch as I was; because if things had gone wrong his share of the blame was certainly equal to mine. If
