"Thank God, sir, yes," replied the young seaman. "He took a grudge to me from the first, before ever you promoted me, and that, of course, made him hate me afterwards more than ever. I did not think, though, he would have tried to take my life. I suppose that was the reason he looked so very strangely when he tried to clutch me before he jumped into the sea?" "Not a doubt of it," said Mr Marline. "He seemed thunderstruck, I know, for I particularly noticed his look. He must have been surprised at seeing you there alive, when he thought he had already settled you for good and all!" "Well, he has met his own punishment," answered Jackson; "and I do not bear him any ill-will now--or ever did for that matter. Let him rest." "Aye," said Captain Miles; "but, how's Gottlieb going on--are you better, my man?" But, there was no answer to the captain's question; and Jackson, bending over the German sailor, found his heart had ceased to beat, his body already becoming cold. "Golly, Mass' Cap'en," called out Jake, "him 'peak de trute dat time, suah, him dead as door-nail!" This news made everyone silent, each man thinking how soon his own time might come; and we anxiously awaited the morning. During the sad episode that had occurred the wind had risen, beginning to blow pretty strongly from the westwards. The sea, too, had got up, for short choppy waves were dashing against the stern of the ship and throwing their broken wash over us. This made our situation less comfortable than it had been previously, our worn-out bodies and hunger- stricken frames not being able to stand the exposure so well now as at first. The masts, also, were grinding against the bulwarks and making a horrible din, the crunching of the timber work and splintering noise of the planks almost deadening the noise of the sea and preventing us from hearing each other speak. Not that we felt much inclined for conversation, answering for myself; for, I was chilled to the bone from the cool evening air penetrating my wet clothes, which got more and more saturated as the waves came over the poop, while I was faint with hunger and exhausted from want of sleep. Thus the weary night passed, the sky being clouded over so that even the lights of heaven could not shine down to cheer us up; and, to add to the bitterness of our unhappy plight, our hearts were full of the untimely end of poor Gottlieb, the German sailor who had passed away so suddenly from amongst us, and the shocking disclosure he had made just before his tired spirit sought eternal rest, of the treachery of Davis--whose terrible fate, in front of our very eyes, seemed a just judgment for his murder of Hermann and foiled vengeance on Jackson, the latter of whom had evidently only escaped with his life through the wretched man's mistake.