Will went to the rail to look for her. The rippling of the waters, parted by the brig’s bows, was sweet as music; it was easy to guess our speed at between three and four knots; unless some convict’s good angel should steer the _Childe Harold_ she’d come aback and float motionless till the self-drugged creatures and the sailors awoke and arose and looked around, so that by daybreak, which was yet two hours off, we should have added a full six miles to the five at which the brig had been stationed when we sighted her. But then by daybreak would there be ever a man of the whole sodden mob equal to lifting his eyelids, and realising how we had served them? There was nothing to fear from that ship and her freight; and still I would not rest, for I wished to watch with Tom and to behold the daybreak and view the scene of ocean it disclosed, with my own eyes. The waiting until the light of the morning glimmered in the east was long and weary. Yet through that time the weak breeze blew and the brig stemmed softly onward with a now steady swaying of her trucks and a pendulous flap of her canvas, for on a sudden a heave of swell had come rolling through the ocean; it was out of the north-west, and Mr. Bates thought there would be wind behind it. We talked of the people who had been sent adrift yesterday morning, wondered how they had fared throughout the night, whether they would be picked up, what would become of them. We talked of the convicts. Tom told the mate that for three weeks the conspiracy had been maturing; by a single word he could have preserved the ship and the lives of those who had been slain, and he sooner would have torn out his tongue. I related my own experiences; exactly acquainted Mr. Bates with Will’s share in my stowaway adventure, and described my sufferings in the store-room under the forecastle. Thus we conversed; we had much to tell. Mr. Bates said that by the convicts’ uprisal he had lost about two hundred and fifty pounds’ worth of property. Tom laughed low and savagely. ‘How do I stand?’ said he. ‘Would two hundred and fifty pounds buy me back what has been taken from me?’ Then, giving a loud unnatural laugh, he clapped the mate on the back and cried, ‘There’ll be more than two hundred and fifty pounds in this brig for you as a salvage job. You came off with your life yesterday morning. That was good. This morning you clamber aboard more than the value you have been plundered of. That’s good still. Why, Bates, cheer up. Did I ever ask if you were a married man?’ ‘I have a wife and two children, Butler.’ ‘Where do you live when you’re with them at home?’ ‘Rotherhithe.’