his back
leaning against the great wooden stock of one of the anchors, his form
showing black as that of an ebony statue against the brilliant silvery
sheen of the moonlight on the water. The remainder of the crew were
dimly visible seated on the deck in the black shadow of the bulwarks, a
tiny red spark or two indicating that some of them were solacing the
idle hours with a whiff or two of the fragrant weed. Officers who were
strict disciplinarians would have forbidden smoking in the watch on
deck, and would have insisted on the whole watch keeping constantly on
the move, as a safeguard against dozing; but Ritson was not a strict
disciplinarian; he liked to spare the men all unnecessary labour of
every kind, and, as there was no sail-trimming to be done, he just
allowed them to rest their weary bodies as much as they could.

He would have liked greatly to rest his own weary body, too, for indeed
he felt it to be almost a torture to be pacing ceaselessly to and fro
there on the deck, hour after hour.

He pulled out his watch, the hands indicated that it was ten minutes to
ten; it would be full two hours more before he would be relieved. There
was a most inviting-looking chair standing on deck near the skylight,
which Captain Leicester had been using during the day, and poor Ritson
thought how pleasant it would be to rest his tired limbs in it for a few
minutes. Then he took a stroll round the decks, just to wile away the
time, and to make sure that the watch--and especially the lookout--was
not "caulking." The shadowy figures scrambled somewhat hurriedly to
their feet on his approach, giving rise to just the faintest suspicion
that perhaps after all they _might_ have been "shutting their eyes to
keep them warm;" but the lookout man seemed unconscious of his presence,
and was humming, scarcely above his breath, the air of a homely song as
Ritson passed him, his gaze resting on a brig ahead, which had been in
sight all day, and which, from the fact that she was steering in the
same direction as the _Aurora_, was thought to belong, like themselves,
to the dispersed fleet. When Ritson again reached the quarterdeck, it
was ten o'clock, so he struck "four bells" sharply; the wheel and
lookout were relieved, and then everybody settled down once more, to
pass away the remaining two hours of the watch.

As has been already hinted, Ritson was not so strict a disciplinarian as
to forbid smoking by the watch on deck, so lo