"Of course it is!" he cried, hoarse as a raven. "What do you want to do? He's drownded by this time! Who's to find him? Give 'em the proper orders, Mr. Royle!" and he vociferated to the men--"Do you want the masts to carry away? Do you want to be overhauled by the fust wessel as comes this road, and hanged, every mother's son of you, because the bo'sun's fallen overboard?" I stood to leeward gazing at the water and uttering exclamations to show my concern and distress at the loss of the boatswain. Stevens dragged me by the arm. "Give 'em the proper orders, I tell ye, Mr. Royle!" he cried. "I say that the bo'sun's drownded, and that no stopping the wessel will save him. Sing out to the men, for the Lord's sake! Let her fill again, or we're damned!" "Very well," I replied with a great air of reluctance, and I advanced to the poop-rail and delivered the necessary orders. By dint of flattening in the jib-sheets and checking the main-braces, and brailing up the spanker and rousing the foreyards well forward, I got the ship to pay off. The carpenter worked like a madman, bawling all the while that if the ship was dismasted all hands would certainly be hanged; and he so animated the men by his cries and entreaties, that more work was done by them in one quarter of an hour than they would have put into treble that time on any other occasion. It was now one o'clock, so it had not taken us an hour to drown the boatswain, put the ship in irons, and get her clear again. Stevens came off the main-deck on to the poop, greatly relieved in his mind now that the sails were full and the yards trimmed, and asked me how it happened that the boatswain fell overboard. I replied, very gravely, that I had come on deck at eight bells, being anxious to see what way the ship was making and how she was heading; that remembering I had left an overcoat in one of the quarter-boats, I looked, but could not find it; that I spoke to the boatswain, who told me that he had seen the coat in the stern sheets of the quarter-boat that afternoon, and got on to the poop-rail to search the boat; that I had turned my head for a moment when I heard a groan, which was immediately followed by a loud splash alongside, and I perceived that the boatswain had vanished. "So," continued I, "I pitched a life-buoy astern and sang out to put the helm down; and I must say, Mr. Stevens, that I think we could have saved the poor fellow had we tried. But you are really the skipper of this ship, and since you objected I did not argue." "There's no use sayin' we _could_ ha' saved him," rejoined Stevens, gruffly. "I say we couldn't. Who's to see him in the dark? We should have had to burn a flare for the boat to find us, and what with our driftin' and their lumpin' about, missing their road, and doing no airthly good, we should ha' ended in losin' the boat."