“Rolt! D’ye mean your religious enthusiast, doctor?” said Captain Gordon.
“Lucky he was the only one!” exclaimed the commander of the ship. “Suicide should be contagious in this heat amongst fellows primed with such memories as sweeten the sleep of your people.”
“I would rather have lost five hundred pounds than that it should have happened,” said Dr. Saunders.
“Do the prisoners take it quietly?” inquired Captain Gordon.
“As I could wish,” answered the doctor. “They seemed awed and frightened.”
The conversation ran thus for awhile. The party then went below to drink some grog, and after finishing my pipe on the quarter-deck I turned in.
I was aroused at midnight to take charge of the ship. I walked the deck until four, and nothing whatever happened saving that at about five bells there suddenly blew a fresh little breeze out of the north-west gloom: it brightened the stars, and the night felt the cooler for the mere sound of foam alongside. This breeze was blowing when I left the deck, and we were then moving through the water at five knots.
At six o’clock I was awakened by the chief officer putting his hand upon my shoulder. The look in his face startled me, and instantly gave me my wits.
“Mr. Barker,” said he, “the captain lies dead in his bunk. He’s been strangled—garrotted somehow. Come along with me. Who in the devil’s name done it?”