'There's some luck for us in this devil's own ocean after all,' said he, swinging his figure towards us, eagerly watched by Mr. Owen, who was on his feet leaning upon the table, and staring with head moving as the captain moved. 'What is it?' cried his wife hysterically. 'Why,' said he, 'there's a breeze sprung up out of the south'ard: I've been watching the ship; there's drag enough in the rag we've got upon her to give her way. And so, Miss Otway, be easy, now that we're heading for the sun afresh, with a man at the wheel and a little scope of wake astern of us.' 'Anything better than lying like a log,' cried Mrs. Burke, with a short swallow in her speech. 'I had hoped from your face there was a ship in sight.' 'And so did I,' I exclaimed. Mr. Owen sat down suddenly, and again buried his hand in his hair. 'But this is as good as a ship being in sight,' cried the captain irritable on a sudden. 'I want to blow north where ships are to be fallen in with, and we're something to see now, with a thirty foot hoist of canvas on top ten foot of freeboard; whereas, before--but let's get something to eat.' We seated ourselves. Mr. Owen took a corner chair and spoke not a word for some time, till at last, on the captain saying that if he fell in with a vessel he would offer handsome sums for a tow, the doctor said abruptly: 'To where?' The captain eyed him with an unfeeling pause of contempt, and then answered: 'That would not rest with you, sir.' 'I must request you to transfer me, if we fall in with a ship,' said Mr. Owen. 'I shall be happy,' said the captain, nervous and convulsive with temper, 'at least--you've got to remember the object you're here for.' He looked at me. 'Miss Otway is not likely to accompany you, and you'll be no gentleman if you desert her.' 'Miss Otway will accompany me if you give her an opportunity of leaving this wreck,' said Mr. Owen. 'This is no wreck, sir,' said the captain in a low-level voice of menace, stooping his head and looking at the doctor under crooked eyebrows. Mr. Owen muttered that he intended to save his life if he could, and Miss Otway's too if he was allowed--the rest he mumbled: after ceasing to articulate his lips moved; then, with a sudden impassioned motion of despair and horror, he sprang from his chair and disappeared in his berth, having barely taken three bites. 'I fear his intellects have become disordered,' said Mrs. Burke. 'He'd like to drive me out of the ship. The lily liver would have me abandon a craft that's as staunch as the newest line-of-battle ship afloat. What would it signify to _him_ that I left a couple of thousand pounds of my hard earnings to go to the bottom here, so long as _his_ dingy skinful of bones and bobs of curls were safely landed?' exclaimed the captain in a low-pitched deliberate speech, that trembled nevertheless with emotion and temper.