The fellow ceased. He had told all he had to relate, and he was by no means such a fool as not to see in his listener's face that he had related much more than enough. He scratched his thigh as a monkey would, and fell to waiting upon his master. When Mr Lawrence had finished breakfast he went on deck consistently with the innovation he had made in the ship's routine aft to relieve Mr Eagle, who had come on watch at eight o'clock, and who now with Mr Pledge went to breakfast in the cabin. It was a very fine, clear, sparkling May morning far down in the English Channel, and still the sea stretched desolate to its dim blue recesses: which, had all been right with Mr Lawrence, would have pleased him very much indeed, but he had something else to think of. The waters frolicked in little sliding runs; it was a chasing dance of waters with the billows pointing their white satin shoes under their brilliant skirts of liquid blue. Mr Lawrence walked the deck, and seemed to be keeping a bright look-out as he swept the horizon with the glass he had brought with him, and often his stern, haughty, and handsome face was directed towards the men, who seemed to know that a vigilant eye had hove into view through the companion, and they clapped a fresh colour of activity into those motions of limbs which accompanied their labours. But in truth Mr Lawrence was all the while thinking of what he had heard from Paul, and every time he took a turn his gaze went to the companion hatch, whence, now that her cabin door was unlocked, he expected at any moment to see the figure of Lucy Acton emerge. What would she do if she came on deck? And what was he to do if his treatment of her had driven her mad? It seemed like all the world to a very little, for here was this one man in conflict with really stupendous circumstances brought about by himself. Upon his hands was the girl of his heart, the most adorable of women in his opinion, as mad--if he was to trust the evidence of his own senses and the report of his steward--as any howling, grimacing, jibbering inmate of a lunatic asylum. Upon his hands, too, was the ship with a crowd of sailors, the ship to be feloniously sold, the sailors to be fraudulently got rid of: and much must depend upon the reception accorded him and his friend Dick, if it ever should come to the _Minorca's_ safe arrival at Rio de Janeiro, by the intelligent scoundrel whom he had named in his letter as Don José Zamovano y Villa. Mr Eagle did not keep him long waiting, and when that surly, awkward seaman arrived Mr Lawrence went below and found Mr Thomas Pledge in the act of leaving the table and the cabin, with his jaw still working in mastication. It was clear that Mr Pledge had no intention of keeping his seat, even though he had not entirely swallowed his last mouthful, when Mr Lawrence hove in sight.