"It will help them to keep from gloomy thoughts," said Mrs. Ryder. "The Star of the South is a home for our men."
"And two run in Valparaiso," retorted Watchett. "And I on'y lost one."
He took a drink with his cousin and went back on board the Battle-Axe, and spent the torrid day in getting a deal of unnecessary work done. And still no flaw of lightest air marred the awful mirror of the quiet seas. Early in the first watch the boats were lowered again to tow the vessels apart. At midnight, when the watch below came aft and answered to their names in the deep shadow of the moonless tropic night, Ned Tidewell did not answer to his name.
"Tidewell!" cried Thoms, angrily and anxiously.
And still there was no answer, but a groan from old Brooks.
"Wot did I tell you?" he demanded. "I seed it in 'is eye."
They searched the Battle-Axe from stem to stern; they overhauled the sails in the sail-lockers; they hunted with a lantern in the forepeak; they even went aloft to the fore and main tops, where once or twice someone who sought for coolness where no coolness could be found went up into what they jocosely called the "attic." But Ned had lost the number of his mess.
"More clothes for sale," said the melancholy crew, as they looked at each other suspiciously. "'Oo'll be the next?"
Brooks declared to the other fo'c's'le men that the next would be Wat Crampe, or Taffy, as they called the Welshman.
"There's an awful 'orrid look o' the deep, dark knowledge of death in their faces," declared old Brooks. "They thinks of the peace of it and the quiet, and smiles secret!"