"They will go to hell!"
"Follow me," said Hardy, and they climbed the companion-steps.
The wind was sleeping. It was now a dead calm, and the fog steeped in night was lifting into the sight—conquering blackness off an ocean that seemed to be boiling upon some furnace of earth miles deep. Damp draughts of air blew with the rolling of the ship, and the canvas beat out hollow notes like the blasts of guns heard underground. The chief mate called the name of Mr. Candy, who stepped out of the impenetrable profound of the quarter.
"This man," said Hardy, talking in the skylight sheen, "is mate of the barque we were foul of just now. Take him forward to the bo'sun and find him a bed anywhere, and food if he needs it."
"I don't need it," said the Frenchman.
"Come along," said Mr. Candy, and they disappeared.
Hardy paused to listen and peer. There was nothing to see, but he might have heard a sound of weeping all about, as though old ocean was mourning over its blindness. He then went to bed, but not to sleep right away. The Frenchman's insolent touching of his brow had accentuated his own deep suspicion of the captain's sanity, and very grave, though perplexed, reflection attended his thoughts of Layard, and the tragically perilous situation of the ship in charge of a lunatic so subtly mad that no one but his chief officer might have understanding enough to see how it was with him.
At eight bells in the middle watch he was aroused by Mr. Candy, and was on deck in a minute or two, for he was a smart man all around; the first at the yard-arm in reefing when his duties had carried him there, the first to spring to the cry, no matter the command, swift in relief, and for ever on the alert whilst the responsibility of life, cargo, and fabric was his. The fog was still very thick, but a thin wind had sprung up out of the east, and the streaming of the waters was like the shaling of a summer tide upon shingle. The braces had been manned when this weak air came, and the yards swung to hold the maintopsail aback; the ship rolled gently under the arrest of her canvas, and there was nothing to see and nothing to do but let the fog soak into the spirits.
"A spare bunk in the forecastle has been found for the French mate," Candy had said. The fellow had grumbled, muttered that he had been an officer on board his own vessel, and deserved better usage. Candy said he was lucky to save his life, and to find a bed in a British forecastle. The Frenchman growled that he considered himself important enough to sleep in the cabin.