he air steadied at all the seaman at the helm could be trusted for
a warning shout: "Ship's all aback, sir!" which like a trumpet-call would
make me spring a foot above the deck. Those were the words which it
seemed to me would have made me spring up from eternal sleep. But this
was not often. I have never met since such breathless sunrises. And if
the second mate happened to be there (he had generally one day in three
free of fever) I would find him sitting on the skylight half senseless,
as it were, and with an idiotic gaze fastened on some object near by--a
rope, a cleat, a belaying pin, a ringbolt.

That young man was rather troublesome. He remained cubbish in his
sufferings. He seemed to have become completely imbecile; and when the
return of fever drove him to his cabin below, the next thing would be
that we would miss him from there. The first time it happened Ransome
and I were very much alarmed. We started a quiet search and ultimately
Ransome discovered him curled up in the sail-locker, which opened
into the lobby by a sliding door. When remonstrated with, he muttered
sulkily, "It's cool in there." That wasn't true. It was only dark there.

The fundamental defects of his face were not improved by its uniform
livid hue. The disease disclosed its low type in a startling way. It was
not so with many of the men. The wastage of ill-health seemed to idealise
the general character of the features, bringing out the unsuspected
nobility of some, the strength of others, and in one case revealing an
essentially comic aspect. He was a short, gingery, active man with
a nose and chin of the Punch type, and whom his shipmates called
"Frenchy." I don't know why. He may have been a Frenchman, but I have
never heard him utter a single word in French.

To see him coming aft to the wheel comforted one. The blue dungaree
trousers turned up the calf, one leg a little higher than the other, the
clean check shirt, the white canvas cap, evidently made by himself, made
up a whole of peculiar smartness, and the persistent jauntiness of his
gait, even, poor fellow, when he couldn't help tottering, told of his
invincible spirit. There was also a man called Gambril. He was the only
grizzled person in the ship. His face was of an austere type. But if
I remember all their faces, wasting tragically before my eyes, most of
their names have vanished from my memory.

The words that passed between us were few and puerile in regard of the
situa