All they had been trying to do was to make a little money—and then to come shooting and murdering people . . . ! Smuggling was against the law, granted—but there should have been some sort of warning. For two winters they had been running cargoes and not a soul seemed to care a fig; then, all of a sudden, crash! The crash had come so suddenly that Ortho wondered for a fuddled moment if it had come, if this were not some ghastly nightmare and presently he would wake up and find himself in bed at Bosula and all well. A cold dollop of spray hit him in the middle of the back, drenching him, and there was Anson sitting up in the bows, the whole front of his smock deluged in blood; blood mingled with sea water washed about on the bottom of the boat. It was no dream. He didn’t care where he was going or what happened. He was soaked to the skin, famished, numb, body and soul, and utterly without hope—but mechanically he kept the boat scudding. The clouds were down very low and heavy bellied. One or two snow squalls swept over. Towards noon a few pale shafts of sunshine penetrated the cloud-wrack, casting patches of silver on the dreary waters. They brought no warmth, but the very sight of them put a little heart into the castaway. He fumbled in the locker under his seat and found a few scraps of stinking fish, intended for bait. These he ate, bones and all, and afterwards baled the boat out, hauled his sheet a trifle and put his helm to starboard with a hazy idea of hitting off the French coast somewhere about Brest, but the gig promptly shipped a sea, so he had to let her away and bale again. Anson was getting on his nerves. The dead man’s jaw lolled in an idiotic grin and his eyes were turned up so that they were fixed directly on Ortho. Every time he looked up there were the eyes on him. It was more than he could stand. He left the tiller with the intention of turning Anson over on his face, but the gig showed a tendency to jibe and he had to spring back again. When he looked up the grin seemed more pronounced than ever. “Grizzling because you’re out of it and I ain’t, eh?” he shouted, and was immediately ashamed of himself. He tried not to look at Anson, but there was a horrid magnetism about those eyes. “I shall go light-headed soon,” he said to himself, and rummaged afresh in the locker, found a couple of decayed sand-eels and ate them. The afternoon wore on. It would be sunset soon and then night again. He wondered where next morning would see him, if it would see him at all. He thought not.