awful. You may well open your mouth, young man. But for
goodness' sake, you who are mixed up with that lot, keep your eyes and
ears open too in case--in case of--I don't know what. Anything. One
wonders what can happen here at sea! Nothing. Yet when a man is called
a jailer behind his back."

Mr Franklin hid his face in his hands for a moment and Powell shut his
mouth, which indeed had been open. He slipped out of the mess-room
noiselessly. "The mate's crazy," he thought. It was his firm
conviction. Nevertheless, that evening, he felt his inner tranquillity
disturbed at last by the force and obstinacy of this craze. He couldn't
dismiss it with the contempt it deserved. Had the word "jailer" really
been pronounced? A strange word for the mate to even _imagine_ he had
heard. A senseless, unlikely word. But this word being the only clear
and definite statement in these grotesque and dismal ravings was
comparatively restful to his mind. Powell's mind rested on it still
when he came up at eight o'clock to take charge of the deck. It was a
moonless night, thick with stars above, very dark on the water. A
steady air from the west kept the sails asleep. Franklin mustered both
watches in low tones as if for a funeral, then approaching Powell:

"The course is east-south-east," said the chief mate distinctly.

"East-south-east, sir."

"Everything's set, Mr Powell."

"All right, sir."

The other lingered, his sentimental eyes gleamed silvery in the shadowy
face. "A quiet night before us. I don't know that there are any
special orders. A settled, quiet night. I dare say you won't see the
captain. Once upon a time this was the watch he used to come up and
start a chat with either of us then on deck. But now he sits in that
infernal stern-cabin and mopes. Jailer--eh?"

Mr Powell walked away from the mate and when at some distance said,
"Damn!" quite heartily. It was a confounded nuisance. It had ceased to
be funny; that hostile word "jailer" had given the situation an air of
reality.

Franklin's grotesque mortal envelope had disappeared from the poop to
seek its needful repose, if only the worried soul would let it rest a
while. Mr Powell, half sorry for the thick little man, wondered
whether it would let him. For himself, he recognised that the charm of
a quiet watch on deck when one may let one's thoughts roam in space and
time had been spoiled without remedy. What shocked him most was the
im