We fell in with a little ship and spoke her, and the speaking her proved one of the most memorable of all the incidents in this strange expedition, as you shall presently learn if you choose to proceed. Greaves was on this day very weak; he had risen to breakfast, sat like the specter of death at table, his sunken, leaden, black eyes wandering from me to Miss Aurora with the seeking gaze of one who strives to collect his wits; then, rising with a little convulsion of his figure, he leaned with his hand upon the table and said, in a small voice, looking downward and slightly smiling: “I must return to my bunk. It isn’t the machinery that’s wrong; the spring has slackened and wants setting up afresh.” I took him by the arm and helped him to his cabin and stood looking on, waiting to be of service, while Jimmy pulled off his coat and shoes. I believed he would speak seriously of his illness, for I guessed that if he felt as bad as he looked he would count himself a dying man. But he had not one word to say about his sensations or condition. When he was in bed I stood beside him, and he lay with his eyes wide open, viewing me steadfastly in silence. Presently he said: “Why do you stand there? It’s all right with me. Get back to your breakfast and finish it, Fielding. Whose lookout is it?” “Mine, sir.” “Why do you stand there?” “I wish to see if I can be of use to you,” said I, making a step toward the door. “I am truly obliged. Jimmy does all I need. I want you to think of nothing but the brig. I shall be quite well--I feel it, I am sure of it--before we have climbed far up the Atlantic. By Isten, Fielding, but it warms me to the very heart of my soul to reflect that you are in charge--you and not Van Laar. Van Laar it might have been, with Michael Greaves helpless in his cabin, and the Horn coming aboard. Lord, Lord, wonderful are Thy ways!” said he, turning up his eyes. “Now get ye to your breakfast. The machinery is all right, I tell you; the spring’s fallen slack, the old clock loses, but the tick’s steady, Fielding, the tick’s steady, my lad, and a few days will make the time right with me; so get on to your breakfast.” I re-entered the cabin and seated myself. “The captain is bad,” said the lady Aurora. I answered with a sorrowful nod. She clasped her hands and looked at me across the table anxiously, and said: “He die.” “_Qué hacer?_” (What is to be done?) I answered, for by this time I had picked up a number of phrases from her. She slightly shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, and, pointing upward, exclaimed in Spanish: “It is as God wills.” Then, again fixing her fine eyes, full of fire and feeling, upon me, she, by nods and gestures, contrived to make me understand this question: “Suppose the captain dies, how is the brig to get to England?” I smiled and pointed to myself, and made her gather that, while I was on board, the brig was pretty sure, in some fashion or other, to head on a true course for England.