"'Oh man, doctor!' said the second mate, heaving a breath, 'isn't it terrible! Good forgive me for a lee to a dying man! Take an old seaman's word for it, Dr Small, yon clock ashore was no mortal soond, sir; ye may keep your drogues for them they'll do good to. 'Twas neither more or less than the captain's _dregy_!' 'Phoo!' answered the Scotch surgeon, who was one of your sceptical chaps, as I heard say, 'some other vessels here, of course, that's all.' The sailor gave him only a smile of pity for not being able to distinguish the sound of a ship's bell. 'There can't be a town hereabouts, Collins?' whispered Westwood. 'A town--no!' said I; 'it's the best wilderness sign you can have--the African bell-bird!'[22] 'Ah, ah!' said the surgeon, laughing, 'there now, Macleod--of course it can be explained naturally, like other things.' The second mate gave me a doubtful scowl; but seeing Westwood, whom he had always seemed to think rather in the way before, his eye softened. [22] _Sc._--The South African and South American _campanero_, or bell-bird, whose peculiar note may be heard two or three miles off, chiefly in the loneliest parts of the Brazilian or Benguela forest. "'You'll be wanting to see the captain as soon as he wakes up, sir,' said he. 'I'm terrified to face him--but if ye'd just slip in when he comes to himself, sir, I'm thinking, reverend sir, ye might wile him off yon terrible notion o' his.' Westwood shook his head, seriously, not knowing what to say. 'Ay, ay, sir,' continued Macleod, as he half closed the door, 'no doubt a man ought to be upon better things; but it's hard for him, when he's got a wife and weans six thousand miles away, and wants them alongside in a couple of hours--uncommon hard, sir! She's a douce, careful body, too, Mistress Williamson, like the captain's self; and I heard her fleech sore with the captain before we sailed, for to bide quietly ashore this time, for good. Poor woman! if she didn't e'en go the length o' pairtin' in anger the last morning, wae's me! till the very moment when (he telt me himself, sir), she out with her arms round his neck, crying like to choke! An' all to--but if the captain had a fault, 'twas the love o'--good forgive me, though, when it was but studying his faim'ly, Mr Thomas! If it was only an auld tarry deevil like me, now, with neither kith or kin!' 'Except cousins, Mr Macleod,' said the surgeon, as he wiped his lancet on his coat-tail--'plenty of them in the High----' But he caught Westwood's eye, and was ashamed to finish his heartless joke, though the rough second mate was too full of his feeling to hear it; when Westwood said something about our all thinking too little of these things beforehand, but how the captain was plainly a man that had done his duty carefully, which no doubt would ease his mind. The mate looked up, and eyed him sideways for a moment: 'Eh? what?' said he bluntly; 'it's not so little I mind o' what I used