She made a most mournful and piteous object in the sunlight, sluggishly rolling to the swell which ran in transparent volumes over her sides and foamed around the deck-house. Once, when her stern rose, I read the name _Cecilia_ in broad white letters. I was gazing at her intently in the effort to witness some indication of living thing on board, when, to my mingled consternation and horror, I witnessed an arm project through the window of the deck-house, and frantically wave what resembled a white handkerchief. As none of the men called out, I judged this signal was not perceptible to the naked eye, and in my excitement I shouted-- "There's a living man on board of her, my lads!" dropped the glass, and ran aft to call the captain. I met him coming up the companion-ladder. The first thing he said was, "You're out of your course," and looked up at the sails. "There's a wreck yonder!" I cried, pointing eagerly, "with a man on board signalling to us." "Get me the glass," he said sulkily, and I picked it up, and gave it to him. He looked at the wreck for some moments, and addressing the man at the wheel, exclaimed, making a movement with his hand-- "Keep her away. Where the devil are you steering to?" "Good Heaven!" I ejaculated; "there's a man on board--there may be others!" "Damnation!" he exclaimed, between his teeth; "what do you mean by interfering with me? Keep her away!" he roared out. During this time we had drawn sufficiently near to the wreck to enable the sharper-sighted among the hands to remark the signal; and they were calling out that there was somebody flying a handkerchief aboard the hull. "Captain Coxon," said I, in as firm a voice as I could command--for I was nearly in as great a rage as he, and rendered insensible to all consequences by his inhumanity--"if you bear away, and leave that man yonder to sink with that wreck, when he can be saved with very little trouble, you will become as much a murderer as any ruffian who stabs a man asleep." When I had said this, Coxon turned black in the face with passion. His eyes protruded, his hands and fingers worked as though he were under some electrical process, and I saw for the first time in all my life, a sight I had always laughed at as a bit of impossible novelist description--a mouth foaming with rage. He rushed aft just over Duckling's cabin, and stamped with all his might. "Now," thought I, "they may try to murder me!" And without a word, I pulled off my coat, seized a belaying-pin, and stood ready, resolved that, happen what might, I would give the first man who should lay his fingers on me something to remember me by whilst he had breath in his body. The men, not quite understanding what was happening, but seeing that a "row" was taking place, came off the forecastle, and advanced by degrees along the main-deck. Among them I noticed the cook, muttering to one or the other who stood near.