Mr. Candy sat down and began to help himself. Hardy had no particular fondness for this man: he was the son of a pilot, and one of those people who add nothing to the dignity of a service which in its day, in point of breeding, in all art of seamanship, in structure of vessel, was as good as the Royal Navy. Witness, for example, the men and ships of John Company; for if no line-of-battle ships flew the flag of that company, and the flags of the owners of fleets of stately craft, ships of commerce had been and were still then afloat as lordly in build, as gracious and commanding in star-searching heights, as the finest of the frigates of Britannia. But Candy was second mate of the ship, and to that degree was important. "Captain Layard is very down," said Hardy. "It's a cruel bad job. I loved the little boy, and the dog that loved him too wouldn't let me save his life." "It was plucky of you, sir, to jump overboard," said the second mate. "All the time the captain walks he looks to port and starboard, hunting like with his eyes over the sea for the little drummer. Strange he can't satisfy himself that the younker is drowned, dead and gone." He was feeding heartily, and spoke in the intervals of chewing. "This shock," said Hardy, who saw that the man was not to be talked to confidentially, "may have a little weakened the poor father's mind for a time. We'll assume it so for the common preservation; therefore, in your watch on deck should he give orders which might prove him thinking more of Johnny than the ship, call me at once." "Ay, ay, sir!" This said, Hardy went to his berth to smoke a pipe and get some rest, for he could not know what lay before him, and sleep is precious at sea. At four o'clock Candy aroused him. The captain, he learnt, had been below an hour. Nothing worth reporting had happened during Candy's watch. Hardy went on deck, and did not see the captain throughout the first dog-watch. The breeze was slightly scanting; the main-tack was boarded and the main-royal loosed and set. Hardy, like a good many other chief mates, was always for carrying on whenever he was in charge, and the breeze blew and the girls of the port he was bound to always hauled with a will at his tow-rope. Besides, there was the night's detention to be made good, and the clipper was making it good as she sheared through the coils of the sea, boiling in dim rose to the westering light. It was like a field of hurdles to a favourite, and she swept them with a bounding keel, slinging rainbows as she went, and the surge sang in thunder to the melodies of the rigging.