On deck it was so dark that, until his eyes grew accustomed, he could
see nothing at all. The few stars had gone under again and the bank of
cloud ahead was higher in the sky. Jerome listlessly threw himself down
on deck close to one of the gunwales and lighted his pipe. The voices of
Bearman and his mate nearby made him feel drowsy. Captain Bearman was
just issuing the last of his instructions before turning in. The ship’s
bell sounded half past midnight.
“As I figure it now,” concluded the ship’s master through his fiery
bush, “we ought to get in a little after dawn. We’ll be making good
headway, and I want to try a flying moor. Of course,” he added whiningly,
“I expect to see those fools make a mess of it and get the cables all
tangled, the way they did off Port Phillip. But the harbour’s very good
here, and we know every inch of it. We’ll try a flying moor, Mr. Nelson.
And I wish you’d get the lashings off the anchors some time between now
and daylight. You’ll have your hands full without going to work on the
hatch covers. Besides, I think we’ll run into a thunder storm before
morning.” He turned and walked off without saying good-night.
Jerome heard the mate mutter to himself, just once, in a disgusted tone:
“A flying moor!” He thought of going over and talking with the mate; for
the mate was a very decent chap. But he felt so comfortable and drowsy
where he was that he decided not to move, even for the sake of learning
what a flying moor was.
As a matter of fact, Captain Bearman wanted to enter with the finest
flourish known to the profession because he had a firm persuasion that
the _Star of Troy_ would be found riding at anchor in the harbour. What
a triumph to come dashing in at dawn, full sails, “a bone in her teeth,”
and achieve a flying moor! But the mate was disgusted because he guessed
the reason and he knew his skipper. It might very possibly be that the
mate hadn’t carried his analysis far enough to know that his skipper
possessed an inferiority complex. But he knew him for a disappointed and
embittered man; had seen him play the satellite.