"Who do you think he was—speak!" said Captain Phillips, perceiving that Joe, a fat, good-natured fellow, with flabby cheeks, and large boiled-looking gray eyes, hesitated through fear, "speak!"
"I am frightened, in this ship, almost to say who I thought he was."
"In this ship—right! Was it Sharkey, eh?"
The steward's teeth chattered. He again glanced fearfully at the skylight, and gave a nod in the affirmative, and the captain struck his right heel on the floor.
"There has been murder committed on board to-night; yes, a most foul murder!" he continued, turning by a mere coincidence to Hawkshaw, who, on hearing the terrible word, grew deadly pale, and trembled violently from head to foot. "Would to Heaven that I had only half-a-dozen good hard-a-weather English seamen to keep this coloured lot in order. Even Lascars of the lowest caste were better than what we have!"
The consternation in the cabin was very great, and the conversation continued below, and the storm above, till Mr. Quail, with many unpleasant forebodings, went on deck to relieve the watch at four o'clock A.M., when the wind began to abate and the sea to go down.
CHAPTER V.
THE LIVID FACE.
The event of the night shed a gloom, a horror, over all in the cabin next day; nor was the alarm in the breasts of Captain Phillips and his mates in the least soothed, when it was remarked that the cook's grindstone was kept at work all the forenoon, and a most ominous sharpening of sheath and clasp-knives went on, while sundry jokes were uttered audibly about "Mister Manfreddy having gone on a visit to Mr. David Jones and Old Mother Carey, without his umbrella, too;" "and the rain a fallin' like Niagary," as Badger, the Yankee, added, with a diabolical grin.
The morning sky was gray and cloudy; a heavy sea was still on, and not a sail was in sight, so Captain Phillips swept the horizon with his telescope in vain.