from him at times, and
avoid his gaze; though when he saw that the second mate was not looking
at him, he turned on him a glance of the most intense hatred. One day,
after this sort of work had been going on for some time, I asked Mr
Henley why it was that he had said he would not, if he could have helped
it, have sailed again with Captain Gunnell.

"Have you remarked anything strange about him lately, Marsden?" he asked
in return.

I said that I thought he looked flushed and hurried in his manner, and
that he often spoke thick, and said things without meaning.

"You have divined one of the many reasons I have for not liking him," he
observed. "He has one of the worst vices which the master of a ship can
possess, or any man who has the lives of hundreds committed to his
charge. He is desperately addicted to liquor; yet, strange to say, he
has sufficient command over himself to keep sober in harbour, or when he
is approaching a port, so that the owners and consignees, and others who
might have taken notice of it, have never discovered his failing, as it
would be called, while an inferior officer like myself would feel that
it would be perfectly useless to report him. I thought of doing so for
the sake of my fellow-creatures who might have otherwise to sail with
him, but I knew that there would be great difficulty in substantiating
my charge, and that if I failed I should ruin my own prospects; so,
right or wrong, I abandoned the idea."

"And so once more you have to sail with him," I could not help
remarking.

"You are right, Marsden; I ought to have had more moral courage,"
answered the second mate. "And now I fear that he will get us into
greater trouble than he did those on board the ship in which I before
sailed with him. The way the men are treated is very bad; and his
refusal to put into harbour may be productive of very serious
consequences, especially should we be caught by bad weather."

Scarcely had Mr Henley said this than the captain made his appearance
on deck with his sextant in his hand, as if to take a meridional
observation. Though it was thus early in the day, I remarked the
peculiarities about him of which I had been speaking. He looked around
him angrily.

"Are none of the officers here?" he exclaimed, turning away, however,
from the second mate. "Where is Mr Grimes? what is the fellow about?
send him here, some one. And you, sir--you think yourself a navigator--
go and get your sex