They growled out something and he looked down the scuttle. A sailor had lighted the slush lamp; some man, perhaps, who was less ill than the others on recovery, or who had the best sense then about. Hardy descended and stood under the hatch, looking round him. I would not like to say how many men were here, because I do not know what the owner of the ship chose to think her complement. Hardy might have counted eight or ten men, in bunks, hammocks, or seated on their sea-chests. The faces he saw were ghastly, as though this ocean-parlour were plague-stricken. He went from one to another to see if all were alive, and they all proved so. The swing of the flame flung shadows like contortions on the visible faces. It was hot down here, and Hardy felt sick with the drug, whose effects were not yet expended. Some breathed deep: the human respiration threaded the subdued moan of water.
"What's been done to us?" said a man sitting on a chest.
"We've all been drugged by a lunatic who's carried off my sweetheart," answered Hardy. "There's to be a shift of weather, and the ship's under all plain sail and aback, and the helm lashed. Any of you here able to come on deck and swing the yards and take the wheel?"
The devil a one! So Hardy climbed with leaden limbs through the square hole and walked slowly aft, and sat down on the skylight.
The Newfoundland came out of a shadow and lay at his feet. A fair light, with power of painting jetty strokes that slided upon the pale planks, flowed from the moon. But the broken orb was hazy, and the mate's eyes saw the darkness of wind gathering in vapour in the west or thereabouts. So the breeze that had been steady all day was to harden sooner or later out of its quarter, and the ship under all plain sail lay aback to it. But Hardy felt too weak to move the wheel, even if by so doing he could have helped the ship; nor, though she could have swung to fill her breasts with canvas, which would have been impossible, he'd have let her lie as she was because, with the yards trimmed as they stood, he couldn't have shaped a course for the direction which he believed the madman had taken.
He sat and thought and waited. It was miserable to see the dead figure of Candy lying there, and miserable when he turned his head to see the dead figure of the sailor beside the wheel. What an unparalleled act! How deep and cunning beyond all credibility, and yet as true as the misty radiance floating in shimmering folds upon the dark and silent heave! His brain was every minute clearing, and he realised more intently as the time slipped by that, if yonder shadow meant heavy weather, the girl was lost, unless a passing ship had picked them up; but how would Hardy know?
In about half an hour one of the figures at the forecastle rail came slowly aft. He stopped and bent over the two forms lying abaft the galley. Hardy heard him speak to them, and he could just catch the murmur of their replies. They had therefore come to, and no doubt would be sitting up and moving about shortly.
The figure that had left the forecastle rail came along, and Hardy saw it was the boatswain. The man went to the body of Candy, and looking round said, in a hollow voice: