‘Turn him over, Bill,’ said Wetherly to the other sailor.
‘Not me! Handle him yourself, Joe.’
Wetherly fell upon a knee, and got the corpse on its back. After my experience with the body on the wreck, I should have deemed myself equal to any sort of ghastly sight-seeing; but that dead captain’s face was more than I could bear, and I was forced to look away and to keep my gaze averted, to rally my nerves from the shock the spectacle had given them.
The crew had come shoving right to the very cabin door, and stood in a crowd, staring open-mouthed with a sort of groaning of exclamations breaking out from amongst them.
‘A bad job this, sir,’ said Wetherly, looking round to me.
‘He’ll be stone-dead, I suppose?’ said the carpenter.
‘O God, yes!’ I exclaimed.
The carpenter seemed to wait, as if he expected me to give directions.
‘Better get the body into the bunk, Mr. Lush,’ said I, ‘and cover it up for to-night.’
‘Ay, hide it as soon as ye will, Joe,’ exclaimed the carpenter; and as he said these words, I observed that he rolled his eyes with an expression in them of keen and thirsty scrutiny over the cabin.