It was the day following the transshipment of the men that he found an opportunity during the captain's absence to take a turn with the girl and talk to her. The sun was shining a little hotly, and the clouds were sailing fast. Each round of swell, as it came under-running the ship out of the northeast, was ridged and wrinkled with arches of foam, and the day was alive with the music in the rigging, with the speckled wings of sea-birds in the wake, and the smoke-like shadow of vapour floating through the sunshine on the water. After the couple had talked a little, Hardy said: "How does the captain treat you?" "Very kindly," she answered. "I keep an eye upon him," he said, "but it will not do to seem to hang near when he is talking to you. He might round and become fierce, for from madness you may expect anything. What is his talk about?" "Chiefly his lost child." A seaman who was in the main-rigging putting a fresh seizing to a ratline looked at the girl, and thought deep in himself, Oh, lovey, what a figure! But what that whiskered heart admired most was the coquettish cock of her head, the grace of one hand upon her hip, the charm of her motions as she walked, her posture when she turned aft or forward on the return that was like a pause in some sweet dancer's movements. Yes, Jack can keep a bright lookout when a girl heaves in sight, but the mighty Charles Dickens is right in holding that Jack's Nan is often the unloveliest of the fair. "Does he go on thinking that you know where his child is?" said Hardy. "Yes. It is a fixed delusion, though I cannot humour it--it is too sad--in spite of your wish." "The oddest part to me," said Hardy, "is the reason he shows in his professional work. He doesn't confound things; the sail he talks of is the sail it is; he still knows the ropes. The flicker of the leach of a topgallantsail will set him wanting a small pull on the leebrace." "How does he manage with the navigation?" asked the girl. "He works it out as I do. He finds the ship's position to a second. This may be the effect of habit, but is not custom beaten into rags by insanity, like the head of an old drum? It's not so in this case, and the crew mayn't find him out till the pilot boards us, and guess nothing until they hear that the doctors have locked him up." "Then what does his madness signify?" said the girl. "He'll be as good as the sanest if we arrive safely." "Ah, but it's the getting there! It's the what may happen to-morrow, or to-morrow, or to-morrow, and that is going to make my hair gray, Miss Armstrong." "Call me Julia," she said, looking at him with a sudden light in her eyes. "Why should I take that liberty?" he replied, smiling. "Because I should love it," she answered.