.
'All the same, you can take it from me that the ewe-lamb business is a
rotten bad one. I don't care how unfaithful the shepherd may be. Drunk
or sober, 'tisn't cricket.'

A surge of the trunk threw him across the cabin as the steward answered
my bell. I wrote my requisition to the doctor while Shend was struggling
to his feet.

'What's wrong?' he began. 'Oh, I know. We're slowing for soundings off
Ushant. It's about time, too. You'd better ship the dead-lights when you
come back, Matchem. It'll save you waking us later. This sea's going to
get up when the tide turns. That'll show you,' he said as the man left,
'that I am to be trusted. You--you'll stop me if I say anything I
shouldn't, won't you?'

'Talk away,' I replied, 'if it makes you feel better.'

'That's it; you've hit it exactly. You always make me feel better. I can
rely on you. It's awkward soundings but you'll see me through it. We'll
defeat him yet.... I may be an utterly worthless devil, but I'm not a
brawler.... I told him so at breakfast. I said, "Doctor, I detest
brawling, but if ever you allow that girl to be insulted again as
Clements insulted her, I will break your neck with my own hands." You
think I was right?'

'Absolutely,' I agreed.

'Then we needn't discuss the matter any further. That man was a murderer
in intention--outside the law, you understand, as it was then. They've
changed it since--but he never deceived _me_. I told him so. I said to
him at the time, "I don't know what price you're going to put on my
head, but if ever you allow Clements to insult her again, you'll never
live to claim it."'

'And what did he do?' I asked, to carry on the conversation, for Matchem
entered with the bromide.

'Oh, crumpled up at once. 'Lead still going, Matchem?'

'I 'aven't 'eard,' said that faithful servant of the Union-Castle
Company.

'Quite right. Never alarm the passengers. Ship the dead-light, will
you?' Matchem shipped it, for we were rolling very heavily. There were
tramplings and gull-like cries from on deck. Shend looked at me with a
mariner's eye.

'That's nothing,' he said protectingly.

'Oh, it's all right for you,' I said, jumping at the idea. '_I_ haven't
an extra master's certificate. I'm only a passenger. I confess it
funks me.'

Instantly his whole bearing changed to answer the appeal.

'My dear fellow, it's as simple as houses. We're hunting for sixty-five
fathom water. Anything short of sixty, with a sou'west wind