the gloomy and solemn shadow in which our folly had posed, with
humane satisfaction, as a tender arbiter of fate. And now we saw it was
no such thing. It was just common foolishness; a silly and ineffectual
meddling with issues of majestic import--that is, if Podmore was right.
Perhaps he was? Doubt survived Jimmy; and, like a community of banded
criminals disintegrated by a touch of grace, we were profoundly
scandalised with each other. Men spoke unkindly to their best chums.
Others refused to speak at all. Singleton only was not surprised.
"Dead--is he? Of course," he said, pointing at the island right abeam:
for the calm still held the ship spell-bound within sight of Flores.
Dead--of course. He wasn't surprised. Here was the land, and there, on
the fore-hatch and waiting for the sailmaker--there was that corpse.
Cause and effect. And for the first time that voyage, the old seaman
became quite cheery and garrulous, explaining and illustrating from the
stores of experience how, in sickness, the sight of an island (even a
very small one) is generally more fatal than the view of a continent.
But he couldn't explain why.

Jimmy was to be buried at five, and it was a long day till then--a day of
mental disquiet and even of physical disturbance. We took no interest in
our work and, very properly, were rebuked for it. This, in our constant
state of hungry irritation, was exasperating. Donkin worked with his
brow bound in a dirty rag, and looked so ghastly that Mr. Baker was
touched with compassion at the sight of this plucky suffering.--"Ough!
You, Donkin! Put down your work and go lay-up this watch. You look
ill."--"I am bad, sir--in my 'ead," he said in a subdued voice, and
vanished speedily. This annoyed many, and they thought the mate
"bloomin' soft to-day." Captain Allistoun could be seen on the poop
watching the sky to the southwest, and it soon got to be known about
the decks that the barometer had begun to fall in the night, and that a
breeze might be expected before long. This, by a subtle association
of ideas, led to violent quarrelling as to the exact moment of Jimmy's
death. Was it before or after "that 'ere glass started down?" It was
impossible to know, and it caused much contemptuous growling at one
another. All of a sudden there was a great tumult forward. Pacific
Knowles and good-tempered Davis had come to blows over it. The watch
below interfered with spirit, and for ten minutes there was a noisy
scrimmag