He left us, and we descended in silence, nor did Miss Temple speak a word to me as we made our way to our gloomy deep-sunk quarters, excepting to wish me good-night.
I slept well, and rose next morning at seven to get a bath in the head; for, as in the Indiaman, so in this barque, and so, indeed, in most ships in those days, there was a little pump fixed in the bows for washing down the decks of the fore-part of the craft. It was a very gay brilliant morning, a fresh breeze about a point before the starboard beam, and the Lady Blanche was moving through it at a meteoric pace with her royals and gaff topsail in, and all else save the flying jib abroad. The water was of a rich blue, and rolled in snow; the violet shadows of swollen steamcoloured clouds swept over the rolling lines of the ocean, and by their alternations of the sunshine made a very prism of the vast, throbbing disc of the deep. About two miles astern was a large schooner, staggering along on a westerly course, so close hauled that she seemed to look into the very eye of the wind and plunging bow under with a constant boiling of foam all about her head. By the time I had taken my bath she was a mere chip of white on the windy blue over our weather quarter.
There were a few sailors cleaning up about the decks, and as I passed them on the road to the cabin, I could not fail to observe that they eyed me with a degree of attention I had never before noticed in them. Their looks were full of curiosity, with something almost of impudence in the bold stare of one or two of them. What, I reflected, can this signify but that the fellow Wilkins overheard everything that passed between the captain and me, and has carried the news into the forecastle? So much the better, I thought; for should the captain come to guess that the men had his secret, the suspicion must harden him in his insane resolve to carry the barque forthwith to Rio to get rid of his crew.
When Miss Temple came out of her berth there was a momentary touch of bashfulness and even of confusion in her manner; then a laughing expression flashed into her eye. As we repaired to the cabin we exchanged some commonplaces about the weather. She warmed up a little when I spoke of the noble breeze and of the splendid pace of the barque, and assured her that the most distant port in the world could never be far off to people aboard such a clipper keel as this. The captain joined us at the breakfast table. I thought he looked unusually haggard and pale, appearing as a man might after a long spell of bitter mental conflict. His eyes seemed preternaturally large, and of a duller and deader black than my recollection found common in them. He seldom spoke but to answer the idle conversational questions one or the other of us put to him. I observed that he drank thirstily and ate but little, and that he would occasionally rest his forehead upon his hand as though to soothe a pain there. Yet lustreless as was his gaze, it was singularly eager and devouring in its steadfastness. He had been on deck since four o’clock, he told us, and had not closed his eyes during the previous four hours of his watch below.
‘I get but little sleep now,’ said he with a long trembling sigh.
‘That schooner astern this morning,’ said I, ‘looked as if she were bound somewhere Rio way.’
He responded with a dull nod of indifference.
‘Were you ever at Rio, Captain Braine?’ asked Miss Temple.
‘No, mem.’
‘I suppose I shall easily find a ship there to carry me home?’ said she.