The only food I had taken all day was the two ship's biscuits, and feeling the need of some substantial refreshment to relieve me of the sensation of faintness, I left the poop to seek the carpenter, in order to request him to keep watch whilst I went below. When on the quarter-deck, and looking towards the cuddy, I perceived two figures huddled together just outside the cuddy door. There was plenty of light here from the lamps inside, and I at once saw that the two bodies were those of Duckling and Coxon. I stepped up to them. Coxon lay on his back with his face exposed, and Duckling was right across him, breast downwards, his head in the corner and his feet towards me. There was no blood on either of them. Coxon had evidently been struck over the head from behind, and killed instantly; his features were composed, and his grey hairs made him look a reverend object in death. Some men on the main-deck watched me looking at the bodies, and when they saw me take Duckling by the arm and turn him on his back, one of them called: "That's right; keep the beggar alive! he's cookee's portion, he is!" These exclamations attracted the attention of the carpenter, who came aft immediately and found me stooping over Duckling. "He's dead, I reckon," he said. "Dead, or next door to it," I replied. "Better for him if he is dead. The captain's a corpse, killed quickly enough, by the look of him," I continued, gazing at the white, still face at my feet. "You had better get him carried forward and covered up. Where's the body of the sailor I brought on board?" "Why, pitched overboard like a dead rat, by orders of this Christian," he answered, giving the captain's body a kick. "He had a good deal of feelin', this pious gentleman. Why do you want him covered up? Let him go overboard now, won't 'ee? Hi, mates!" he called to the men who were looking on. "Here's another witness agin us for the Day o' Judgment! Heave him into the sea, my hearties! We don't want to give him no excuse to soften the truth for our sakes when he's called upon to spin his yarn!" The men flocked round the bodies, and whilst three of them caught up the corpse of the skipper as if it had been a coil of rope, others of them began to handle Duckling. "Him too?" asked one. "What do you say, Mr. Royle?" demanded the carpenter. "It ain't Mr. Royle's consarn--it's cookee's!" cried one of the men. And he began to bawl for "cookee!" Meantime the fellows who held the captain's body, not relishing their burden, went to leeward; and two of them taking the shoulders and one the feet, they began to swing him, and at a given word, shot him over the bulwarks. They then came back quite unconcernedly, one of them observing that the devil ought to be very much obliged to them for their handsome present. The cook now approached, walked aft by some men who held him by the arms. They were laughing uproariously, which was explained when I saw that the cook was drunk.