"That's true enough, sir, but there's one thing you ought to order me to do at once." "Yes; what?" The sailor pointed to the flag spread out behind where the midshipman sat; and Mark shuddered as he grasped his meaning. "Do you think I ought to, Tom?" whispered the lad at last, in awe-stricken tones. "What do you think, sir, left in charge as you are?" returned the man. "Seems a terrible thing for a young gent like you to give orders about, but I can't see no way out of it. We did our best to save him, and now it don't seem as we can save ourselves. 'Tall events, we can do no good to him, and I think the skipper--beg pardon, sir, no offence meant, the captain--will say you did what was quite right in giving me my orders." Mark was silent, and tried to think out the matter calmly and with reason, but his head throbbed and burned, and all kinds of thoughts of other things kept on coming to confuse him and stop the regular flow of his thought, till it was as if he could think of everything else but the subject of such great importance to those on board. At last, though, he leaned over the side, and bathed his throbbing temples with the comparatively cool water, when, by slow degrees, the beating ceased, and the power to think calmly came back. "Do you really feel it would be right, Tom Fillot?" he said. "I'm sure it would, sir." "No, no, I couldn't do it," cried the boy, excitedly; "it seems too dreadful." "More dreadful not to do it, sir, begging your pardon," said the man, quietly; and Mark gazed at him wonderingly to see how calm, manly, and serious he, the wag of the ship, had grown to be now. "No, no, I dare not. Here, I'll speak to Mr Russell." "Do, sir; but I'm afraid you won't make him understand. He's too far gone for that." Mark went down on his knees by his officer and took his hand. Then, placing his lips close to the stricken man's ear, he asked him again and again to give him his advice what to do, but elicited nothing but a peevish muttering, as the lieutenant tossed his head from side to side. "What I told you, sir." "Then I'll ask Dance," cried Mark. "He is over you men, and I cannot do this without some one to share the responsibility." "Try him, sir; but he's quite off his head, and if he says do, his advice ain't worth having, for he'll never know he said it." All the same, in his terrible perplexity, Mark crawled over the thwarts and between the men to where the coxswain lay muttering incessantly right forward, with his head resting against the pole of his hitcher; but in spite of appeal after appeal the man lay with his eyes fixed, quite insensible to every word addressed to him, and the midshipman crept back to where Tom Fillot sat.