“What is the matter?” asked Demosthenes, anxiously. “We are not in any danger, are we?”
“No,” replied Holmes. “But I am somewhat puzzled at the bubbles on the surface of the ocean, and the ripples4 which we passed over an hour or two ago, barely perceptible through the most powerful microscope, indicate to my mind that for some reason at present unknown to me the House-boat has changed her course. Take that bubble floating by. It is the last expiring bit of aerial agitation5 of the House-boat’s wake. Observe whence it comes. Not from the Azores quarter, but as if instead of steering6 a straight course thither7 the House-boat had taken a sharp turn to the northeast, and was making for Havre; or, in other words, Paris instead of London seems to have become their destination.”
Demosthenes looked at Holmes with blank amazement8, and, to keep from stammering9 out the exclamation10 of wonder that rose to his lips, he opened his bonbonnière and swallowed a pebble11.
“You don’t happen to have a cocaine12 tablet in your box, do you?” queried13 Holmes.
“No,” returned the Greek. “Cocaine makes me flighty and nervous, but these pebbles14 sort of ballast me and hold me down. How on earth do you know that that bubble comes from the wake of the House-boat?”
“By my chemical knowledge, merely,” replied Holmes. “A merely worldly vessel15 leaves a phosphorescent bubble in its wake. That one we have just discovered is not so, but sulphurescent, if I may coin a word which it seems to me the English language is very much in need of. It proves, then, that the bubble is a portion of the wake of a Stygian craft, and the only Stygian craft that has cleared the Cimmerian Harbor for years is the House-boat—Q.E.D.”
“We can go back until we find the ripple3 again, and follow that, I presume,” sneered17 Le Coq, who did not take much stock in the theories of his great rival, largely because he was a detective by intuition rather than by study of the science.
“You can if you want to, but it is better not to,” rejoined Holmes, simply, as though not observing the sneer16, “because the ripple represents the outer lines of the angle of disturbance18 in the water; and as any one of the sides to an angle is greater than the perpendicular19 from the hypothenuse to the apex20, you’d merely be going the long way. This is especially important when you consider the formation of the bow of the House-boat, which is rounded like the stern of most vessels21, and comes near to making a pair of ripples at an angle of ninety degrees.”
“Then,” observed Sir Walter, with a sigh of disappointment, “we must change our course and sail for Paris?”
“I am afraid so,” said Holmes; “but of course it’s by no means certain as yet. I think if Columbus would go up into the mizzentop and look about him, he might discover something either in confirmation22 or refutation of the theory.”
“He couldn’t discover anything,” put in Pinzon. “He never did.”
“Well, I like that!” retorted Columbus. “I’d like to know who discovered America.”
“So should I,” observed Leif Ericson, with a wink23 at Vespucci.
“Tut!” retorted Columbus. “I did it, and the world knows it, whether you claim it or not.”
“Yes, just as Noah discovered Ararat,” replied Pinzon. “You sat upon the deck until we ran plumb24 into an island, after floating about for three months, and then you couldn’t tell it from a continent, even when you had it right before your eyes. Noah might just as well have told his family that he discovered a roof garden as for you to go back to Spain telling ‘em all that San Salvador was the United States.”
“Well, I don’t care,” said Columbus, with a short laugh. “I’m the one they celebrate, so what’s the odds25? I’d rather stay down here in the smoking-room enjoying a small game, anyhow, than climb up that mast and strain my eyes for ten or a dozen hours looking for evidence to prove or disprove the correctness of another man’s theory. I wouldn’t know evidence when I saw it, anyhow. Send Judge Blackstone.”
“I draw the line at the mizzentop,” observed Blackstone. “The dignity of the bench must and shall be preserved, and I’ll never consent to climb up that rigging, getting pitch and paint on my ermine, no matter who asks me to go.”
“Whomsoever I tell to go, shall go,” put in Holmes, firmly. “I am commander of this ship. It will pay you to remember that, Judge Blackstone.”
“And I am the Court of Appeals,” retorted Blackstone, hotly. “Bear that in mind, captain, when you try to send me up. I’ll issue a writ26 of habeas corpus on my own body, and commit you for contempt.”
“There’s no use of sending the Judge, anyhow,” said Raleigh, fearing by the glitter that came into the eye of the commander that trouble might ensue unless pacificatory27 measures were resorted to. “He’s accustomed to weighing everything carefully, and cannot be rushed into a decision. If he saw any evidence, he’d have to sit on it a week before reaching a conclusion. What we need here more than anything else is an expert seaman28, a lookout29, and I nominate Shem. He has sailed under his father, and I have it on good authority that he is a nautical30 expert.”
Holmes hesitated for an instant. He was considering the necessity of disciplining the recalcitrant31 Blackstone, but he finally yielded.
“Very well,” he said. “Shem be it. Bo’sun, pipe Shem on deck, and tell him that general order number one requires him to report at the mizzentop right away, and that immediately he sees anything he shall come below and make it known to me. As for the rest of us, having a very considerable appetite, I do now decree that it is dinner-time. Shall we go below?”
“I don’t think I care for any, thank you,” said Raleigh. “Fact is—ah—I dined last week, and am not hungry.”
Noah laughed. “Oh, come below and watch us eat, then,” he said. “It’ll do you good.”
But there was no reply. Raleigh had plunged32 head first into his state-room, which fortunately happened to be on the upper deck. The rest of the spirits repaired below to the saloon, where they were soon engaged in an animated33 discussion of such viands34 as the larder35 provided.
“This,” said Dr. Johnson, from the head of the table, “is what I call comfort. I don’t know that I am so anxious to recover the House-boat, after all.”
“Nor I,” said Socrates, “with a ship like this to go off cruising on, and with such a larder. Look at the thickness of that puree, Doctor—”
“Excuse me,” said Boswell, faintly, “but I—I’ve left my note-bub-book upstairs, Doctor, and I’d like to go up and get it.”
“Certainly,” said Dr. Johnson. “I judge from your color, which is highly suggestive of a modern magazine poster, that it might be well too if you stayed on deck for a little while and made a few entries in your commonplace book.”
“Thank you,” said Boswell, gratefully. “Shall you say anything clever during dinner, sir? If so, I might be putting it down while I’m up—”
“Get out!” roared the Doctor. “Get up as high as you can—get up with Shem on the mizzentop—”
“Very good, sir,” replied Boswell, and he was off.
“You ought to be more
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