I was looking at some of this delicate network on the main deck when the figure of a man passed through it and approached the boatswain, who had charge of the ship till midnight. They talked with a rumble in their notes that was as good as telling you something was wrong. The captain called out:
'What does that man want?'
The boatswain then came to us, leaving the man standing, and exclaimed, 'He says there's a strange sailor in the ship.'
'What's that?' demanded Captain Burke.
'He says there's a man walking about as don't belong to the ship's company.'
'Whose grog has he been cribbing?' said Mr. Owen.
The captain called to the man, who came and stood before us. The moonlight whitened him: he was a powerfully built fellow, with a quantity of black hair hanging about his ears and dark nervous eyes, which caught the light in silver stars.
'What's this about a strange man being aboard?' said the captain.
'There's a strange man in the ship, sir,' he answered.
And now I observed that in the black shadow of the galley forward there stood a little group of men, apparently striving to hear what was spoken aft.