"I have drawed enough to swim ye," said the cabin-attendant to Bill. "'Tain't like being in port, though," answered Bill, whilst Jim and several others like him grinned at the news of the grog. "When I takes a drop, I'm for dancin', and where are the gurls?" "Ah!" echoed Jim in a sigh born of lobscouse and the livid fat of diseased pork. Finding that the captain did not make his appearance, Hardy kept the deck with Julia. Again they talked of the old home, the drunken stepmother, the withering indifference of the retired Commander R. N. to the loneliness and helplessness of his child, and to her prospects in life. Hardy spoke of it with heat, and the girl's face was often hot with the passion of memory. "What should I have done without you?" she said once and again, and still again. "But if I cannot find employment in Australia, I must return in this ship," and she looked at him with the eyes of a sweetheart. "If anything happens to Captain Layard," said he, "no doubt I shall get command." Now, "If anything should happen" is the roundabout of "If he should die," and people modestly thus speak of death as though it was anything, as though it was not the _only_ thing that is real, to be expected without fear of disappointment. "I believe he will grow quite mad long before we arrive at Melbourne," said Julia; "but even taking him as he is, would the agents trust him?" "You want to come home in this ship, Julia?" said Hardy. "You are the only friend I have in the world," she answered; and thus they cooed without billing, for Jack was in strength forward, and the second mate walked the deck to windward, and a sailor stood at the wheel. About a quarter before noon, but not till then, the captain emerged with his sextant. If he had come up with a face of madness, the sextant he held would have clothed him with all the sanity he needed in the sailors' opinion. But his face showed no distinctive marks of the condition of his mind, the expression was even calm; he seemed as one who was about to realise the consuming hope of his life; the shadow of the coming event subdued him. The crew were on deck gathered forward in all variety of sprawling posture, smoking and talking, with teeth sharpened by the hard and bitter fare of the sea. Also seven bells having been struck some time since, they knew that noon and a bumper of old Jamaica were at hand, and every eye was directed aft.