especially if"--He stood up, walked to the side, and kept facing the whole breadth of the awful-looking sea, as it were till it seemed to blind him. "I tell you what, sir," said he slowly, "if that water had any use, a priest would say, 'twas sent to wash that same island clean of what's been done on it; but it couldn't, Mr Collins, it couldn't, till the day of judgment!" He leant over till his dark face and his shoulders, to my notion, made the milk-white surge that stole up to the schooner's bends take a whiter look. "If that water could wash _me_, now," muttered he, "ay, if it could only take the soul out of me, curse me, but I'd go down, down this moment to the bottom!" With that he gave a sudden move that made me catch him by the arm. "No, no, Mr Collins," said he, turning round; "the truth is, I mean to go through with it: by G--, I'll let it carry me where I'm bound for! D--n it, wasn't I born without asking my leave, and I'll kick the bucket the same way, if it was on a blasted dunghill!" "Come, come, Mr Jones," said I, in a soothing sort of way, "go below for a little, and sleep; when we hail the land, I'll have you called." "I'd rather not, sir," said Jones, quietly; "the truth is, it strikes me there's something strange in my happening to be aboard here, at this particular season, too; and see that same island, _now_, I must! It's fate, Lieutenant Collins," added he; "and I must say, I think it's the more likely something may turn out there. Either you'll see that ship, or the men, or else _I_'ll be there myself, in some way or other!"