‘Yet,’ said the mate to me, in the course of a long earnest talk, ‘I honestly believe, Miss Johnstone, the fellow will shell out before he dies. How long he’ll take in sinking I don’t know. His looks aren’t sweet and lively; I’ve known pleasanter minutes in my time than talking to that carroty head, bolstered up, flickering out to the slush lamp with a dirty old blanket drawn to its throat. Yet he’s now fallen into the trick of a wall-eyed look that makes me hopeful. I seem to see the truth rising like a whale coming up to blow, though before it touches the surface it settles again.’ ‘How long do you give him to live?’ said I. ‘Why, a sea-dog of his cut,’ said he, ‘often holds on with such a grip as disappoints the most humane calculations. It isn’t so much dying as drying out. Nature kind of embalms him, as a Yankee would say. It’s salt and sun that does it. This chap might live to be sent ashore in the English Channel. Just the sort of a man he is to walk slowly, in shiny cloth and a face of tallow, out of a hospital, and sign articles a month afterwards for a warm voyage.’ Now, as well as I can remember, it was two days after this talk with Mr. Bates that I was in my berth mending my dress with a needle and thread from a sailor’s housewife that had been found in the forecastle. I don’t recollect that we had taken the south-east trade-wind; the yards were square, a fresh, merry, sparkling breeze blew over the quarter, and the brig floated fast before it, sitting very upright, with a slow, small, majestical curtseying motion in the length of her as she was underswept by the Atlantic swell that ran with the breeze. Suddenly, someone knocked in an agitated manner upon my door; I cried: ‘Who’s there?’ The voice of Mr. Bates, not less indicative of excitement than his knuckles, cried: ‘I want paper and ink as quickly as possible, Miss Johnstone.’ Here in my berth, which had been the captain’s, was kept the brig’s small stock of writing materials. Somehow I guessed what the mate wanted paper and pen for. I whipped on my dress and opened the door. He took what he needed, just saying, ‘Nodder’s offered to confess!’ and hastened away. My heart at this news leapt up and half choked me with a sudden transport. It was drawing on to four o’clock in the afternoon; Tom was in his cabin resting. I put on my hat and went on to the deck and found Collins at the wheel. Will, who was in Tom’s watch, according to the disposition of our little company, was lying down.