‘Stay a bit,’ said I. ‘I will see if anything is wrong, and let you know.’ After some groping, I succeeded in lighting the candle in my lantern; and then slipping on my shoes, I made for the hatch ladder, which I was able to see by leaving my cabin door open. I entered the cuddy and listened. The lamp had been extinguished; but a sort of spectral illumination of stars and white water came sifting through the skylight and the port-holes and the little windows in the cuddy front, and I was able to determine the outline of objects. All was right in this interior, so far as I could tell. I listened; but not so much as a footfall sounded upon the upper deck, not a note of human voice or movement of men forward. The barque was sweeping through the seas bravely, and the atmosphere of the cuddy was vibratory with the resonant cries of the wind up aloft. I made for the cuddy door and looked out; nothing stirred on the quarter-deck that ran pallid into the impenetrable shadow past the waist. I returned to the companion steps, which I mounted, and stood in the hatch a moment or two. There was nobody on the poop saving the man at the helm. I stepped over to him and said, ‘Where’s the captain?’ ‘He’s gone below,’ he answered; ‘he told me he wouldn’t be long.’ ‘When did he leave the deck?’ ‘Seven or eight minutes ago, belike.’ ‘Did you hear a noise just now that resembled a pistol-shot?’ I inquired. ‘No, sir,’ he answered. ‘But who’s to hear anything atop of this here shindy of wind and water?’ ‘That’s true,’ I exclaimed. ‘I doubt if the noise will have meant more than a fall of something below. It is the lady who heard the sound, and I’ve just stepped up to see what it might mean. It’s to be hoped the captain won’t linger. This is not a breeze in which to leave a ship in charge of her helmsman only.’ And indeed the little craft wanted too much watching on the part of the fellow to suffer him to talk or to permit of my calling off his attention from his duty. I resolved to wait, that there might be some sort of lookout kept whilst the captain stayed below. The breeze had freshened, I thought, since I left the deck; there was a dim windy look, moreover, all away out to starboard; and the barque close hauled was making the wind to come as hard again as it was blowing, in fact, through her thrusting, plunging, nimble manner of looking up into it. The mainsail is too much for her, thought I; it should be furled. There is a staysail or two too many, also; and that top-gallant sail will have to come in anon, if the look of the sky out yonder means what it threatens. Five minutes passed, but the captain did not make his appearance. The sound that Miss Temple had heard was beginning to work an ugly fancy in my mind. I stepped aft to the wheel. ‘Did the captain tell you why he was going below?’