I’d keep my ears open to hear if he spoke of Tom; but he never uttered my sweetheart’s name nor indicated him by any fashion of his own. Strange to relate, one of his favourites was now the prize-fighter Barney Abram. It puzzled me to imagine by what acts this man Abram had succeeded in gaining the doctor’s good opinion and confidence. Certainly during service no man was so attentive as the prize-fighter. I see him now with his head slightly on one side, his eyes fixed upon the doctor with an expression of half-complacent admiration, as though what he heard was not only doing him good but amazing him with the beauty and eloquence with which it was delivered. Then I gathered that Barney was very zealous in the school-work. I remember the doctor telling Captain Barrett that the tears stood in the prize-fighter’s eyes whilst he expressed his gratitude for the opportunities provided by the discipline of the convict ship for improving his understanding and qualifying him to think and reason as a rational, responsible being. Captain Barrett looked silently at the doctor through his eye-glass; but immediately the doctor had quitted the table the captain turned to Lieutenant Chimmo and spoke in a low voice, and then they both laughed wildly. Indeed, the subaltern beat upon the table as though he would suffocate. I remember again, one afternoon, that I was sent with a tray of seltzer and glasses to the poop. The commander of the ship was seated in company with the doctor and the two military men. An awning was stretched overhead, and its shadow was pleasant with the breath of a small breeze off the beam, and it danced with a strange pulsing of lights from the diamond twinkling of the brilliant blue sea. We had by this time crossed the Equator; I believe our latitude was about three degrees south. Sentries paced the fore part of the poop as usual; the sentry forward sheltered himself in the gloom of the corner of sail; a few convicts were lounging in a lifeless manner betwixt the barricades. Tom was one of the convicts. He sat at the foot of the mainmast in the shadow of it with his elbows on his knees, his brows betwixt his clenched fists, his head hanging down, his eyes rooted to the deck, his whole posture extraordinary with its suggestion of that sort of grief which turns a man into stone.