I continued to pace the deck, keeping a close eye upon the ship, with watchful regard also of the compass, for every hour of this sailing was bringing us by so many miles nearer to the South American seaboard. Shortly before two o’clock, on looking through the skylight, I observed Miss Temple lying back upon the cushion of the locker in a sound sleep. Her hat was upon her knees, her cheek was pillowed upon her arm; thus she rested in sideways posture. Whilst I stood looking at her, as at a picture of a beautiful sleeping woman framed in the square of the skylight, and touched with the soft illumination of the oil-lamp swinging hard by her couch, a man struck four bells on the forecastle, and a minute or two later the dark figure of a seaman came along to leeward to relieve the wheel. I waited a little, and then stepped to the binnacle under pretence of inspecting the card. ‘Are the watch below up forward?’ said I. ‘All hands are awake,’ he answered, and I recognised him by his voice, though I could not discern his features. He was a young sailor named Forrest, a fellow I had often taken notice of for the elastic suppleness of his body, the peculiar swing of his walk, an amazing agility aloft, and an air of mutinous impudence in his manner of going about any job he might be put to. ‘I suppose they have been talking about the captain’s death?’ said I. ‘They’ve been talking of a many things,’ he responded with a sort of chuckle in his voice, as though he had been drinking. ‘Is Mr. Lush among them?’ ‘Oh, ay.’ ‘Well, keep your luff,’ said I; ‘she’s a couple of points off her course as it is.’ ‘Her course for where?’ said the man. ‘For Rio,’ I answered. He made no answer, and I resumed my pacing of the planks. CHAPTER XXXIII THE CARPENTER CALLS A COUNCIL At four o’clock the carpenter came aft to relieve me. He asked me in a short off-hand way how the weather had been; and the wide-awake note in his voice satisfied me that whether or not he had slept during his watch below, he had certainly not now come fresh from his bunk or hammock. When I had answered him, he went abruptly to the compass, and I descended the poop ladder and entered the cuddy.