‘Captain,’ said Will, ‘I’m sorry I interfered or spoke to Marian. You’re a man of honour; you’ll do what’s right by my cousin.’ Tom smiled at him. ‘You will never get me to leave you!’ said I, jumping up and grasping my sweetheart’s arm. ‘You’re tired, dear; the air is soft on deck, the evening is cloudless and beautiful. Wrap yourself up and I’ll carry a chair for you on to the deck-house roof.’ But matters were to come to a head more swiftly than ever I had dared dream. We had left Tristan five days behind us. In all this time the brig had gnawed her way to windward on a taut bowline, the breeze holding fresh and steady off the bow, the blue seas flowing in long, deep lines. Rotch throughout was waited upon by Mr. Bates. And first as to this man Rotch. I frequently questioned the mate about him, and gathered this: He spoke little and ate poorly; he craved for drink as though he burnt with a perpetual thirst of fever; and Bates put plenty of fresh water into his cabin, and rum enough to poison him out of hand, if ever he should have a mind for what I would now call a Barney-Abram drench. Bates told us the fellow was growing very thin in the face and falling away in the body; already his clothes were fitting him ill. He was restless, and Bates seldom entered his cabin without finding him pacing the little square of deck. It was Tom’s wish that Bates should attend to the man; he was afraid to trust himself with him; and Will was young and green, and might by some well-meant whisper balk my sweetheart’s scheme to terrify the man into a confession of truth. Once, when Bates went in with the prisoner’s dinner, Rotch, leaning against his bunk with his arms folded--so the mate described him--asked where they were sailing the brig to. Bates answered plainly, ‘To England.’ Rotch said: ‘What does the man Butler mean to do with me?’ Bates replied: ‘He means to keep you with him till you prove his innocence; time will be granted; if you then fail, he’ll hang you. He’s a man of his word; when you made a convict of him, you made a devil of him. He no longer holds human life in value. He’d shoot you through the head with as easy a heart as a felon brains a warder.’ ‘Suppose I do what he wants--what then?’ asked Rotch. ‘I don’t know,’ answered Bates. ‘Find out,’ said the man. (When this was put to Tom, he said: ‘Let him confess, let the document bear his signature and be properly witnessed, and I’ll hand him over to you, Bates--to you and to Will along with this brig and cargo--I’ll leave you in the Channel by the first Frenchman who’ll put me ashore in his country; what Miss Johnstone will do we’ll consider. First let the man confess.’) This was repeated to Rotch, who said to the mate: ‘What would you do with me?’ ‘Establish Captain Butler’s innocence,’ answers the mate. ‘The sooner you do it, the better you’ll be used.’ Rotch made no answer.