"If anything happens to Captain Layard," said he, "no doubt I shall get command."
Now, "If anything should happen" is the roundabout of "If he should die," and people modestly thus speak of death as though it was anything, as though it was not the only thing that is real, to be expected without fear of disappointment.
"I believe he will grow quite mad long before we arrive at Melbourne," said Julia; "but even taking him as he is, would the agents trust him?"
"You want to come home in this ship, Julia?" said Hardy.
"You are the only friend I have in the world," she answered; and thus they cooed without billing, for Jack was in strength forward, and the second mate walked the deck to windward, and a sailor stood at the wheel.
About a quarter before noon, but not till then, the captain emerged with his sextant. If he had come up with a face of madness, the sextant he held would have clothed him with all the sanity he needed in the sailors' opinion. But his face showed no distinctive marks of the condition of his mind, the expression was even calm; he seemed as one who was about to realise the consuming hope of his life; the shadow of the coming event subdued him. The crew were on deck gathered forward in all variety of sprawling posture, smoking and talking, with teeth sharpened by the hard and bitter fare of the sea. Also seven bells having been struck some time since, they knew that noon and a bumper of old Jamaica were at hand, and every eye was directed aft.
Hardy disappeared and returned with his sextant, and Candy fetched his, and the three men fell to screwing down the sun till its lower limb was like a wheel upon the ocean line. The captain never spoke, and Julia studying his face noticed the subdued look and the calmness, and felt a little despairful, for, poor heart, she was in love, and wanted the captain to go raving mad that Hardy might get command and marry her at Melbourne, and bring her home. O God, what joy for a heart so long joyless! A home, a protector, a husband, on whose breast she could lean with her lips at his ear in softest murmurings of wifely confidence.
"Eight bells! Make it the bell eight!" and the four double chimes rang gladly along the decks and up aloft.
"Pass the word for the cabin servant," said the captain, speaking and looking as collectedly as the sanest of skippers might show in that first command of tacking, "Ready about!"
The man came aft in a hurry, impelled by the thirsty yearning of the forecastle mob, and in a couple or three minutes he was standing at the capstan just abaft the mast with a bucket on the "head," and a tot measure in his hand. The captain stood close to the man, and the crew gathered around. The Newfoundland stood at his master's side. Now was to be seen the most glowing canvas in the panorama which unfolds this ship's adventure. The picture was alive with its crowd of faces of seamen watching the lips of their commander, alive with the colour and diversity of their apparel, with the silent breathing of the white breast soaring to the height of the fiery streak of bunting, which trembled in a dog-vane from the main-royal truck. The sea was soft in caress and note, and Julia thought of the wayside fountain to which she as well as Hardy had listened in the night, when, in the pause, she heard the fall of the shower under the bow.