Page:Stevenson - The Wrecker (1892).djvu/439

Rh captain of men for all homely purposes, where intellect is not required and an eye in a man's head and a heart under his jacket will suffice. Before the others had time to understand the misfortune, he was bawling fresh orders, and had the sails clewed up, and took soundings round the ship.

“She lies lovely,” he remarked, and ordered out a boat with the starboard anchor.

“Here! steady!” cried Tommy. “You ain't going to turn us to, to warp her off?”

“I am though,” replied Wicks.

“I won't set a hand to such tomfoolery for one,” replied Tommy. “I'm dead beat.” He went and sat down doggedly on the main hatch. “You got us on; get us off again,” he added.

Carthew and Wicks turned to each other.

“Perhaps you don't know how tired we are,” said Carthew.

“The tide's flowing!” cried the captain. “You wouldn't have me miss a rising tide?”

“Oh, gammon! there's tides to-morrow!” retorted Tommy.

“And I'll tell you what,” added Carthew, “the breeze is failing fast, and the sun will soon be down. We may get into all kinds of fresh mess in the dark and with nothing but light airs.”

“I don't deny it,” answered Wicks, and stood awhile as if in thought. “But what I can't make out,” he began again, with agitation, “what I can't make out is what you're made of! To stay in this place is beyond me. There's the bloody sun going down—and to stay here is beyond me!”

The others looked upon him with horrified surprise. This fall of their chief pillar—this irrational passion in the practical man, suddenly barred out of his true sphere—the sphere of action—shocked and daunted them. But it gave to another and unseen hearer the chance for which he had been waiting.