I had observed that though the captain carried it with a high hand over all the other officers and crew, he always treated Mr Henley with considerable respect, and never swore at or abused him. They, however, very seldom exchanged any words with each other; and, indeed, never spoke except on duty. I had lately remarked Mr Henley constantly watching the captain, who seemed to shrink away from him at times, and avoid his gaze; though when he saw that the second mate was not looking at him, he turned on him a glance of the most intense hatred. One day, after this sort of work had been going on for some time, I asked Mr Henley why it was that he had said he would not, if he could have helped it, have sailed again with Captain Gunnell. "Have you remarked anything strange about him lately, Marsden?" he asked in return. I said that I thought he looked flushed and hurried in his manner, and that he often spoke thick, and said things without meaning. "You have divined one of the many reasons I have for not liking him," he observed. "He has one of the worst vices which the master of a ship can possess, or any man who has the lives of hundreds committed to his charge. He is desperately addicted to liquor; yet, strange to say, he has sufficient command over himself to keep sober in harbour, or when he is approaching a port, so that the owners and consignees, and others who might have taken notice of it, have never discovered his failing, as it would be called, while an inferior officer like myself would feel that it would be perfectly useless to report him. I thought of doing so for the sake of my fellow-creatures who might have otherwise to sail with him, but I knew that there would be great difficulty in substantiating my charge, and that if I failed I should ruin my own prospects; so, right or wrong, I abandoned the idea." "And so once more you have to sail with him," I could not help remarking. "You are right, Marsden; I ought to have had more moral courage," answered the second mate. "And now I fear that he will get us into greater trouble than he did those on board the ship in which I before sailed with him. The way the men are treated is very bad; and his refusal to put into harbour may be productive of very serious consequences, especially should we be caught by bad weather." Scarcely had Mr Henley said this than the captain made his appearance on deck with his sextant in his hand, as if to take a meridional observation. Though it was thus early in the day, I remarked the peculiarities about him of which I had been speaking. He looked around him angrily. "Are none of the officers here?" he exclaimed, turning away, however, from the second mate. "Where is Mr Grimes? what is the fellow about? send him here, some one. And you, sir--you think yourself a navigator-- go and get your sextant and prove yourself one," he added, turning fiercely to me. "You young slips of gentility must be kept in order."