“And I believe you'd have sailed without me, if I hadn't got back on time.”
“I would,” said the captain, as before.
Hicks threw back his head, and laughed. Probably no human being had ever before made so free with Captain Jenness at his own table; but the captain must have felt that this contumacy was part of the general risk which he had taken in taking Hicks, and he contented himself with maintaining a silence that would have appalled a less audacious spirit. Hicks's gayety, however, was not to be quelled in that way.
“Gibraltar wouldn't be a bad place to put up at for a while,” he said. “Lots of good fellows among the officers, they say, and fun going all the while. First-class gunning in the Cork Woods at St. Roque. If it hadn't been for the res angusta domi,—you know what I mean, captain,—I should have let you get along with your old dug-out, as the gentleman in the water said to Noah.” His hilarity had something alarmingly knowing in it; there was a wildness in the pleasure with which he bearded the captain, like that of a man in his first cups; yet he had not been drinking. He played round the captain's knowledge of the sanative destitution in which he was making the voyage with mocking recurrence; but he took himself off to bed early, and the captain came through his trials with unimpaired temper. Dunham disappeared not long afterwards; and Staniford's vague hope that Lydia might be going on deck to watch the lights of the town die out behind the ship as they sailed away was disappointed. The second mate made a point of lounging near him where he sat alone in their wonted place.
“Well,” he said, “he did come back sober.”
“Yes,” said Staniford.
“Next to not comin' back at all,” the mate continued, “I suppose it was the best thing he could do.” He lounged away. Neither his voice nor his manner had that quality of disappointment which characterizes those who have mistakenly prophesied evil. Staniford had a mind to call him back, and ask him what he meant; but he refrained, and he went to bed at last resolved to unburden himself of the whole Hicks business once for all. He felt that he had had quite enough of it, both in the abstract and in its relation to Lydia.
XVI.
Hicks did not join the others at breakfast. They talked of what Lydia had seen at Gibraltar, where Staniford had been on a former voyage. Dunham had made it a matter of conscience to know all about it beforehand from his guide-books, and had risen early that morning to correct his science by his experience in a long entry in the diary which he was keeping for Miss Hibbard. The captain had the true sea-farer's ignorance, and was amused at the things reported by his passengers of a place where he had been ashore so often; Hicks's absence doubtless relieved him, but he did not comment on the cabin-boy's announcement that he was still asleep, except to order him let alone.