Morley, Gawthrop, and three of the crew went ashore in the jolly-boat to procure some fresh water and vegetables. Morrison followed in the quarter-boat; both returned in about an hour, and after what they had brought off was put on board, they were sent ahead with a warp to tow the ship off the land, towards which a dangerous current had been drifting her.
A fine breeze soon after sprang up; the Princess bore away upon her course, and ere midnight came down upon the sea, she had bade a last farewell to the lofty isle of Tristan d'Acunha.
When next we see her on the ocean, we shall have something to narrate very different from the hitherto peaceful and prosperous voyages of Bartelot and his shipmates.
CHAPTER II.
THE CREW OF THE "HERMIONE" DISCONTENTED.
For days Captain Hawkshaw was haunted by the recollection of that strange episode, the sinking corpse; whose features—seen through the fevered medium of his own imagination and his guilty conscience—seemed to assume the likeness of Morley Ashton, as they went slowly down through the green, translucent sea, after Dr. Leslie Heriot had attached the cannon-shot to its heels.
He accounted for the exclamation of horror that escaped him, by saying to those in the boat that he felt a sudden qualm of sickness, of disgust, or a giddiness; and his first resource when on board was to Joe, the captain's steward, for his brandy bottle.
When he began to reason with himself, however, in a calmer moment, he perceived the impossibility of the remains being those of Morley Ashton, as no influence of current, tide, or wind could have drifted them from the coast of Britain so far through the ocean as the South Atlantic.
The idea was absurd—impossible!
Moreover, the drowned man had not been dead more than a week to all appearance; and then his hands had grasped a life-buoy, evincing that he must have fallen overboard from some ship, or been the victim of a wreck.