I extinguished the lamp, wedged the door afresh, and responding to Miss Temple’s appealing stare with a smile, I went on deck. The night was a clear dusk, with a great plenty of shining stars, over which many small clouds were driving swiftly; and the wind still continued to blow strong, though it had not gained in force since sail had last been shortened, and the sea was now running steadily on the bow in regular heaps of dark waters melting at their heads, so that the motion of the barque, by being rhythmic, was comparatively easy. I gained the weather deck; and after a peep at the compass and a glance at the indistinguishable face of the figure at the wheel, I started off on the traditionary pendulum walk of the sea-watch, to and fro, to and fro, from the wheel to the break of the poop, constantly directing looks to windward or up aloft, and frequently at Miss Temple, as she showed, seated as I had left her, visible to me through the glass of the skylight. It was out of the question that she should pace the deck with me throughout that long watch. The pouring wind came with an edge of cold damp that made itself felt after a brief term of exposure to it. Then, again, it was not to be thought of that the sailors should find the lady on deck throughout this night watch, as though we were both in mortal fear, and kept together to hearten each other. Now that it had come to there being no head to the ship, it was of vital importance that Miss Temple should remain as private as possible, but little seen by the men. I had clear ideas as to the extraordinary situation in which we were placed; and as I glanced at her through the skylight window, I made up my mind to subdue her to my views, to conquer the insolence of her spirit, even should it come to my having to act in a manner that might be deemed brutal, never to humour her by giving her reasons, but to peremptorily insist in such a fashion as to make her perceive that whilst we were thus together, I was her master, and she must instantly acquiesce in my decisions; for unless this was to be managed, her temper, her want of tact, her pettish character as that of a person whose nature had been injured by admiration and indulgence, might end in the destruction of us both.

What a midnight watch was that! I was sick at heart, and miserable with misgiving. My distrust of the carpenter, a feeling that had all along possessed me, was strong even to a conviction that he was equal to the acting of a hellish part, and that being free, and at the head, so to speak, of a gang of men, of whom one only—I mean Wetherly—seemed worthy of confidence, he might be presently hatching some plot of deadly menace to Miss Temple and me. I asked myself what form could such a plot take? I knew not: I could but forebode: I could only keep before me the circumstance of a little ship afloat on a wide sea without captain or mates, full to the hatches with commodities of value, a handsome fabric of herself, virtually in the possession of an irresponsible body of men, into whose keeping she had come through the merest effect of fortune, without the least stroke of rascality on their part. I say I had only to consider this, and then to think of the character of the crew as it had been represented to me by Captain Braine, to forebode some action on their part that might extinguish my project of reaching Rio—with so much to follow that I durst not give my mind to speculating upon it.

Shocking as had been the suddenness and the unexpectedness of the captain’s suicide, the thing sat lightly as a horror upon my imagination, so profoundly agitated was I by the indeterminable fears that had been raised in me by the few words the carpenter had let fall. I could not be sure; but it seemed to me, by the haze of light which hung about the forecastle hatch, called the forescuttle, and by an occasional stirring of shadows amidst it, as though to the movements of the men below, or to figures coming on deck and descending again, that all hands were awake forward. There should have been nothing to particularly disturb me in this suspicion, for enough lay in the captain’s death to account for the men keeping awake and talking; still, the belief that the sailors were conversing in their gloomy little sea parlour, with Lush’s growling tongue sulkily active amongst them, greatly increased my uneasiness.

I continued to pace the deck, keeping a close eye upon the ship, with watchful regard also of the compass, for every hour of this sailing was bringing us by so many miles nearer to the South American seaboard. Shortly before two o’clock, on looking through the skylight, I observed Miss Temple lying back upon the cushion of the locker in a sound sleep. Her hat was upon her knees, her cheek was pillowed upon her arm; thus she rested in sideways posture. Whilst I stood looking at her, as at a picture of a beautiful sleeping woman framed in the square of the skylight, and touched with the soft illumination of the oil-lamp swinging hard by her couch, a man struck four bells on the forecastle, and a minute or two later the dark figure of a seaman came along to leeward to relieve the wheel. I waited a little, and then stepped to the binnacle under pretence of inspecting the card.

‘Are the watch below up forward?’ said I.

‘All hands are awake,’ he answered, and I recognised him by his voice, though I could not discern his features. He was a young sailor named Forrest, a fellow I had often taken notice of for the elastic suppleness of his body, the peculiar swing of his walk, an amazing agility aloft, and an air of mutinous impudence in his manner of going about any job he might be put to.

‘I suppose they have been talking about the captain’s death?’ said I.

‘They’ve been talking of a many things,’ he responded with a sort of chuckle in his voice, as though he had been drinking.

‘Is Mr. Lush among them?’

‘Oh, ay.’