Jacob Crimp had resumed his hold of the wheel. I went up to him. ‘I’ll keep the helm steady,’ said I, ‘whilst you wipe out those chalk marks on the deck. Meanwhile pick up that pistol yonder and bring me the case off the skylight.’ Whilst he did this we were hailed from the barque. She lay close to us, with her sailors in a crowd about the fore-rigging, where they had been standing attentive spectators of the duel. ‘Beg pardon!’ bawled Captain Crimp, erect on the rail and steadying himself by a backstay, ‘but I should be glad to know if the gent’s coming aboard?’ I shouted back, ‘No. You need not wait for him.’ The man tossed his arm with a gesture very significant of a growling ‘Well, well!’ and then with a flourish of his hat he cried, ‘A lucky run home to ’ee, gentlemen all!’ dismounted, and fell to singing out orders. His wild-looking crew ran about, the maintopsail-yard slowly swung round, and presently the deeply-laden, malodorous craft, rolling clumsily upon a swell to whose light summer heavings our yacht was curtseying with fairy grace, was heading round to her course, blurring the water at her bows to the blowing of the mild breeze that had scarcely power enough to lift her foresail. Finn and Cutbill arrived on deck, and Wilfrid on seeing them went below. ‘Better turn the hands up, I suppose, now, sir?’ said Finn to me. ‘There’ll be nothen more, your honour, that’ll be onfit for them to see.’ ‘By all means, Captain Finn; and then get the boat hoisted and a course shaped for home, for our quest is over, and we have made southing enough, Heaven knows!’ Cutbill went forward. There is a magic in the mere sound of homeward bound that would put a jocund nimbleness into the proportions of a marine Falstaff. Cutbill tried to walk and look as though he were sensible that death lay under his feet and that the shadow of a dreadful event hung dark upon the yacht, but scarce was he abreast of the galley when his spirits proved too much for him, and he measured the rest of the deck in several gleesome, floundering jumps, pounding the scuttle with a capstan bar that he snatched up, and roaring out, ‘All hands trim sail for home!’ The men came tumbling up as though the yacht’s forecastle were vomiting sailors, and in a breath the lustrous decks of the ‘Bride’ were full of life, colour, and movement. A man came to the wheel. I lingered a minute or two to exchange a few words with Finn. ‘You are sure the Colonel is dead?’ ‘Ay, sir; he’ll be no deader a thousand years hence.’ ‘A bloody morning’s work, Finn! I feel heart-sick, as though I had shared in the assassination of a man. But since it was bound to end in one or the other’s death, ’tis best as it is. Have you any particulars of the foundering of the “Shark”?’