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 trail the
lee-rail of the _Farallone_ level with the foam, he laughed out an empty
laugh, drained his glass, sprawled back among the lumber in the boat,
and fetched out a crumpled novel.

Herrick watched him, and his indignation glowed red-hot. He glanced to
windward where the squall already whitened the near sea and heralded its
coming with a singular and dismal sound. He glanced at the steersman,
and saw him clinging to the spokes with a face of a sickly blue. He saw
the crew were running to their stations without orders. And it seemed as
if something broke in his brain; and the passion of anger, so long
restrained, so long eaten in secret, burst suddenly loose and shook him
like a sail. He stepped across to the captain, and smote his hand
heavily on the drunkard's shoulder.

"You brute," he said, in a voice that tottered, "look behind you!"

"Wh