"The fact was, on going below to our state-room, I had found my own cot taken up by someone in the confusion; and as every door stood open at night in that latitude, I e'en made free with the nearest, which I knew was the missionary's. In a minute or two I heard Westwood meet the mate, who said he thought the captain would like to see him, and hoped they hadn't 'disturbed the other gentleman.' 'Oh no, I daresay not,' said Westwood, rather nervously, guessing, I daresay, what he was wanted for; while Finch slipped quietly past to listen at the state-room door, where both he and I might hear the 'other gentleman,' whoever he was, snoring pretty plain.
"When the first officer shut the door to, however, turned the key, and put it in his pocket, I nearly gave vent to a whistle. 'I see!' thought I; 'but, my fine fellow, it seemed you never were meant for a good jailer, anyhow!' He was no sooner gone than I walked forward toward the captain's cabin, near the after-hatchway, anxious enough to see how the poor man was, since I had had such a share in bringing him to a point, one way or another. Westwood was standing against the light out of the open door, and I looked in along with him, at the cot slung high to the beams like a lump of shadow, the lamp striking across below it on all the captain's little affairs—his glazed hat and his wet coat, the names of two or three old books even hanging in shelves against the bulkhead—and into the little state-room off the cabin, where the surgeon was stooping to mix a draught.
"The hard-featured Scotch mate stood holding the captain's wrist with one clumsy flipper, as if trying to feel his pulse, fumbling about his own face with the other, and looking more concerned than I'd thought possible for him. 'Well, I've slept—a good deal,' said the captain, in a weak voice, putting up his hand slowly to rub his eyes, but seemingly quite composed, and knowing nothing of what had happened—which rid me of the horrid notion I could scarce help before, that he had known what he was about. His head was close shaved, and the look of a sailor clean gone off his face with the bluff, honest oak-colour it commonly had, till you'd have wished him decently in his bed thousands of miles off, with women slipping out and in; only the blood from his arm hanging down on the sheet, with the sharp point of his nose and the shape of his knees coming up off the shadow, kept it all in one with the wild affair on deck a few hours gone.
"'She's on her course, you say?' added he, listlessly. 'Must be a very light breeze though, Mr Macleod.' 'So it is, sir; so it is, no doubt!' replied the second mate, soothing him; 'did ye say we'll pent the ship, sir?' 'Ay, before we go into port, Mr Macleod, to be sure,' said Captain Williamson, trying to put a cheerful tone into his voice; 'she's had a good deal of buffeting, but we mustn't let 'em see it, you know! Didn't you lose a mizzen-topmast somehow, though, Mr Macleod?' ''Deed ay, sir,' said Macleod, hastily, afraid he was getting upon the scent of what had happened; 'the first officer's watch it was, sir—will I tell Mr Finch ye're wanting to speak to him about it, Captain Williamson?' and he began to shuffle towards the door.
"'Finch? Finch?' said the sick man, passing his finger over his eyes again; 'what voyage is this, Mr Macleod?' 'Why—why,' said the Scotchman, starting, and rather puzzled himself. 'Oo, it's just this voyage, ye know, sir! Mr Finch, ye mind, sir?' 'No, no; don't let him leave the deck for a moment, Macleod!' said the captain, anxiously: 'harkye, James, I'm afraid I've trusted overmuch to the young man all along! I'll tell ye, Mr Macleod, I don't know whether I was asleep or not, but I heard him somewhere wishing he had the command of this ship! I shouldn't like him to take her off my hands! Have you seen the Scilly lights yet, Mr Macleod?'
The mate shook his head; he had contrived to persuade the poor man we were far homeward bound. 'If you'd only get the pilot aboard, Mr Macleod,' the captain went on, 'I'd die contented; but mind the charts—mind the charts—I've got the charts to mind for another sort of voyage myself, James!' 'Hoot, hoot, captain!' said the Scotchman, 'what sets ye for to talk after that fashion—you'll be up an' about decks directly, sir! What were ye saying about top-m'sts now, sir?' Captain Williamson gave the second mate a glance that looked into him, and he held down his head, for the man evidently believed fully, as none of us could help doing, that there was death on the captain's face.
"'James, James!' said the captain, slowly, 'you've no notion how some things weigh on the mind at a pass of this kind! Other things one don't remember—but there's one in particular, almost as it were yesterday—why, surely you were with me that voyage, Mr Macleod! when I let some o' the passengers take a boat in a calm, and all——' Here he stopped, seemingly overcome. 'There was one young creature amongst 'em,' he went on, 'the age of my own girl, Macleod—my own little Nan, you know—and now—now I miss her—and, and——' The poor man gave a great gulp, clutching the mate's arm, and gazing him in the face. 'Wasn't it a long time ago?' said he, very anxiously; 'if it wasn't, I would go mad! They were all drowned—drowned—I see that black squall coming down on the swell now, man, and the brig, and all of us looking out to the wind'ard!' 'I mind something about it,' replied Macleod, stoutly, though he looked away: ''twas none o' your fault, though, Captain Williamson—they were just fey, sir; and more than that, if ye mind, sir, they took the boat again' all orders—on the sly, I may say.'
"Westwood was on the point of starting forward to make known how the case stood, on the strength of our finding the paper in the bottle, when I pressed his arm, and whispered that it could only make things worse, and cheat the sick man of a notion more likely to do him good than otherwise. 'It's a heavy charge, Mr Macleod, a heavy charge!' said he, falling back again; 'and one Mr Brown needn't envy.' 'Mr Finch, sir, ye mind,' put in the second mate, setting him right; 'but keep up your heart, sir, for any sake!' 'I feel I'll last over the time o' next full tide,' said the captain, solemnly. 'I don't want to know how far we're off, only if there's any chance at all, Macleod, you won't spare canvas to carry her in.'
"The Scotchman rubbed one of his hard cheek-bones after the other, and grumbled something or other in his throat by way of agreement. The whole thing was melancholy to see, after last night's stir, with the dim lamp or two twinkling along the gloom of the steerage, the dead quietness of the ship, and the smothered sort of glare under the captain's cot bringing out the mere litter on the floor, to the very cockroaches putting their ugly feelers out of one of his shoes in a corner; he shut his eyes, and lay for a minute or two seemingly asleep, only murmuring something about a breeze, and then asking them to shove out the port, 'twas so close. The second mate looked to the surgeon, who signed to him to do it, as if it didn't much matter by this time; while he gave him the draught of physic he was mixing, however.
"The Indiaman was beginning to swing slowly before the first of the flood, stern off at her anchors; and whenever the port was opened, 'twas so still otherwise that you heard the tide clearly in the cabin, rippling along the timbers to the copper upon her bows—plash, plash, and lap, lip, lap, like no other earthly sound that a man can hear—and you even began to note it on something else a good bit off, though it seemed to be all quite dark out-board. The captain's eyes opened by degrees, till we saw them looking at us out of the shadow of the cot, and the second mate started as if to mend his mistake; only 'twas plain enough, by that time, the captain knew the sound, half raising himself up and listening. A few early mosquitoes came in, and, after dancing about to refresh themselves in the light and warmth under the cot, began to bite savagely; everyone of us had a distant horn sounding in his ear, and each was rubbing it or his nose, except the sick man; but not one of them settled on him. As the starboard port slued gradually opposite to the nearest shore, a low, deep hum was carried in over the water, ebbing and flowing, and full of dim, creeping noises, like things stirring in their sleep, as if the little cabin had been an ear to the ship. At times the tree-frogs broke out in a loud clicking chirrup; then, between the fits of it, when all seemed still again for a moment or two, you heard a low, half-smothered, small sound, deeper down, as it were, fill up the break with its throbbing and trill-trilling, as if just one land-cricket or a grasshopper did it, till it came out as clear as though it were a child's rattle close by, and all of a sudden stopped; when back floated the huge whispering hum again, with a damp smell of leaves on a cold breath of the land-air, that died away as quickly as it reached us. The bewilderment on Captain Williamson's white face for that minute's time was cruel to witness, and Macleod would certainly have closed the port, but for the captain's seizing his arm again, with a wild, questioning sort of a look into the second mate's eyes. 'Oh, good God!' faltered out the captain, 'it's—it's land!——where—where——?' 'For goodsake, sir,' said Macleod, 'don't ask me the now—take a bit of sleep, sir.'