“I reckon there’s more rain in Borneo than anywhere else on earth,” observed the mate, as he and Captain Bearman stood conversing a few minutes near the wheel just prior to the latter’s going below for his usual four hours of sleep. The mate and the captain relieved each other every four hours, while the seamen worked on a schedule of two on and six off, day and night.
Bearman made some mumbling reply. Then he began issuing instructions—a great many more than were really necessary; and the mate, who knew his business, privately resented being treated like an apprenticed seaman.
All the passengers, assuming that port would not be made until morning, had gone below. Captain Bearman at first had figured that the coast ought to be picked up around noon, and his binoculars began to be a little in evidence soon after that—not seeking Borneo itself, but the islands which string along to the north-east. The wind was very unfriendly and the schooner laboured as though she had a barge in tow. It grew dark—and no Borneo. It was slow and heavy-going progress at best.
The dark came down, and with the early dark, the sky seemed to lighten a little, and a few stars emerged. The wind slackened, too. But the glass retained its pessimistic outlook, and clouds were slowly banking ahead.
Below, in the little cabin allotted to them at the time of their marriage, Jerome and Lili were quarreling. Jerome looked haggard and sombre since the death of his baby; but Lili, though she had cried a good deal and had a dull expression in her eyes sometimes, seemed not particularly altered.
They were not quarreling violently; it was more the irritability of fatigue and depressing emotion which found utterance in mutual dissatisfaction. Now that his little son was gone, Jerome was asking himself how much longer this farce with Lili would have to be kept up.
Her eyes grew heavier and heavier. Her sumptuous hair was done into a tight braid down her back. She was already in her bunk, while Jerome sat glumly on the edge, still in his clothes.
She nodded and half drifted off for a moment; then, as he moved, she opened her eyes. And she murmured, her voice obscurely troubled and with no longer the petulant ring it had more or less carried all the evening: “Jerry....”