‘Mr. Bates,’ said I, ‘you have managed marvellously well with Nodder. Surely you’ll bring the other wretch to confess.’
‘Read Nodder’s statement to him,’ said Tom.
‘He might snatch it from me and destroy it,’ said the mate. ‘There should be two of us.’
‘Will’s too young!’ I exclaimed.
‘I’ll go with you,’ said Tom.
They settled it so, and fixed six o’clock for the visit.
We were so slender a company in that brig that I was often put to the wheel; I never regularly stood a trick, as sailors say; when they were all wanted I steered till one of them relieved me. I went to the helm to send Collins on the deck-house top that Will might get his supper. As I quitted the cabin Bates and Tom went to Rotch’s berth. There was some noise in the wind at this hour; the breeze blew fresh, the short seas ran sharp and burst shrilly, the race of foam on either hand sent up a note of boiling, there was much merry whistling in the rigging, and a faint small thunder of wind sweeping out of the hollows through the curved foot of the sails.
So it happened that I could hear but little of what passed in the cabin. The wheel was small; I gripped it strongly; I put my mind into the binnacle-stand and watched the card very earnestly, that the brig should not run away with me.
Twenty minutes might thus have passed when I heard noises that rose high above the sound of the sea and the cries in the rigging. Will shouted, ‘Marian, there’s murder doing!’
I dared not let go of the wheel lest the vessel should broach to and lose her spars. I shrieked with all my might to Collins, who came running headlong down the steps.