"if it wasn't, I would go mad! They were all drowned--drowned--I _see_ that black squall coming down on the swell _now_, man, and the brig, and all of us looking out to the wind'ard!" "I mind something about it," replied Macleod stoutly, though he looked away; "'twas none o' your fault, though, Captain Williamson--they were just _fey_, sir; and more than that, if ye mind, sir, they took the boat again' all orders--on the sly, I may say." Westwood was on the point of starting forward to make known how the case stood, on the strength of our finding the paper in the bottle; when I pressed his arm, and whispered that it could only make things worse, and cheat the sick man of a notion more likely to do him good than otherwise. "It's a heavy charge, Mr Macleod, a heavy charge!" said he, falling back again; "and one Mr Brown needn't envy." "Mr _Finch_, sir, ye mind," put in the second mate, setting him right; "but keep up your heart, sir, for anysake!" "I feel I'll last over the time o' next full tide," said the captain solemnly. "I don't want to know _how_ far we're off, only if there's any chance at all, Macleod, you won't spare canvass to carry her in." The Scotchman rubbed one of his hard cheek-bones after the other, and grumbled something or other in his throat by way of agreement. The whole thing was melancholy to see after last night's stir, with the dim lamp or two twinkling along the gloom of the steerage, the dead quietness of the ship, and the smothered sort of glare under the captain's cot bringing out the mere litter on the floor, to the very cockroaches putting their ugly feelers out of one of his shoes in a corner: he shut his eyes, and lay for a minute or two seemingly asleep, only murmuring something about a breeze, and then asking them to shove out the port, 'twas so close. The second mate looked to the surgeon, who signed to him to do it, as if it didn't much matter by this time; while he gave him the draught of physic he was mixing, however.