ubt also, the sense of the last cast, of the ships burned, of all
doors closed but one, which is so strong a tonic to the merely weak, and
so deadly a depressant to the merely cowardly.

For some time the voyage went otherwise well. They weathered Fakarava
with one board; and the wind holding well to the southward and
blowing fresh, they passed between Ranaka and Ratiu, and ran some days
north-east by east-half-east under the lee of Takume and Honden, neither
of which they made. In about 14 degrees South and between 134 and 135
degrees West, it fell a dead calm with rather a heavy sea. The captain
refused to take in sail, the helm was lashed, no watch was set, and the
Farallone rolled and banged for three days, according to observation, in
almost the same place. The fourth morning, a little before day, a breeze
sprang up and rapidly freshened. The captain had drunk hard the night
before; he was far from sober when he was roused; and when he came on
deck for the first time at half-past eight, it was plain he had already
drunk deep again at breakfast. Herrick avoided his eye; and resigned the
deck with indignation to a man more than half-seas over.

By the loud commands of the captain and the singing out of fellows at
the ropes, he could judge from the house that sail was being crowded on
the ship; relinquished his half-eaten breakfast; and came on deck again,
to find the main and the jib topsails set, and both watches and the cook
turned out to hand the staysail. The Farallone lay already far over;
the sky was obscured with misty scud; and from the windward an ominous
squall came flying up, broadening and blackening as it rose.

Fear thrilled in Herrick's vitals. He saw death hard by; and if not
death, sure ruin. For if the Farallone lived through the coming squall,
she must surely be dismasted. With that their enterprise was at an end,
and they themselves bound prisoners to the very evidence of their crime.
The greatness of the peril and his own alarm sufficed to silence him.
Pride, wrath, and shame raged without issue in his mind; and he shut his
teeth and folded his arms close.

The captain sat in the boat to windward, bellowing orders and insults,
his eyes glazed, his face deeply congested; a bottle set between his
knees, a glass in his hand half empty. His back was to the squall, and
he was at first intent upon the setting of the sail. When that was done,
and the great trapezium of canvas had begun to draw and to