The dog had bounded up out of the cabin, and was wandering around sniffing at one silent figure and another: no doubt he was in quest of his master. Then it occurred to Hardy to remember that the grog had been served out at noon. Suppose he had got away at two. What sort of breeze was then blowing? He reflected and remembered. He would sail dead away and right before it, for he had no destination, and was sure to shape the crow's course. "Grant her four miles an hour, and this is ten o'clock," he thought, pulling out his watch and holding it to the moon. "The boat may have covered thirty miles of sea. They may have been fallen in with and rescued, for Julia would shriek her story, and the captain might believe that Johnny was aboard. But how shall I know? How shall I know? I must take it that the boat is still afloat, and Julia must be saved." He considered the direction of the wind, and made up his mind to the course that must be steered; but now as to the crew. He went to Candy and, kneeling, shook him, put his hand to his face, put his ear to his mouth, and easily saw that he was dead. The discovery thrilled through him like the cut of a sword on the shoulder. He walked to the figure beside the wheel, and in a little while could not doubt that the man, too, was dead. It was not because he was a doctor's son that he needed to be informed of the action of a heavy dose of laudanum, or some poisonous drug of that sort, upon the movements of a weak heart. But there were live men forward, and with sluggish motions of his limbs he went that way. He stooped over the two figures abaft the galley, and detected life in them. He then stepped on to the forecastle, and the first man he spoke to was the boatswain, who was resting his head in his arm upon the rail. He now saw there were three others near him, and two were sitting on the coamings of the forescuttle. "The captain was mad and has drugged us," said Hardy. "He has taken the lady with him, and I want to give chase. Where are the rest of the men?" "As the Lord is God," answered the boatswain, "don't my precious head know it's been drugged. Talk o' Shanghaing! But I never knowed it from the hand of a skipper nor worse than this." "I want to trim sail, and make a start to rescue the lady," said Hardy. "You'll not get the men to move if there was twenty ladies to be rescooed," responded the boatswain, who spoke as if he was drunk. "I ha'n't got strength to lift a sprat to my mouth if I was starving," said one of the men, who leaned with folded arms as though at any moment the three of them would sink exhausted to the deck. It drove Hardy crazy with a consuming desire to start in chase to see their helplessness and to feel his own. But what was he to do! Here were four men, and two sitting on the coamings of the scuttle, and two alive, though prostrate, near the galley--eight men, and more perhaps below in the forecastle.