Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 2.djvu/280

 spirits on board, and I don't believe some folks in the cabin don't make themselves jolly."

"Pray, how did you know that?" asked Garry.

Warren could not answer; he was only talking for talking sake, as the saying is.

"Never mind him, Garry," said Bolton. "You see he knows nothing about it."

"Well," said Pen, "we'll go and ask for a ration of gin from the chief officer. We've earned it well, I'm sure, and we'll see if he refuses."

"I advise you to do nothing of the sort," rejoined Garry, seriously.

"Why not?" asked Pen and Gripper.

"Because you'll only get 'No' for an answer. You knew the regulation when you signed the articles. You should have thought about it sooner."

"Besides," replied Bolton, who always sided with Garry, "Richard Shandon is not the master; he has to obey like all the rest of us."

"Obey whom, I should like to know?"

"The captain."

"Confound the captain," exclaimed Pen. "Can't you see through all this make-believe. There is no more any real captain than there is any tavern among those ice-blocks. It's only a polite fashion of refusing us what we have a right to demand."

"But there is a captain," replied Bolton, "and I would wager two months' wages that we shall see him before long."

"So much the better," said Pen. "I, for one, should like to say a few words to him."

"Who's talking about the captain?" said a fresh interlocutor.

It was Clifton who spoke—an anxious, superstitious man.

"Any more news about the captain?" he asked.

"None," was the unanimous reply.

"Well, some fine morning I quite expect to find him in his cabin, without anyone knowing how he got there, or where he came from."

"Be off with you," said Bolton. "You seem to think the captain is a sort of Brownie, like those that the Scotch Highlanders talk about."