eze, and the sea
looked as pleasant and harmless as a cat that has just eaten a
canary. But when it was toward the end of the first watch, and
the waning moon had not risen yet, and the water was like still
oil, and the jibs hung down flat and helpless like the wings of a
dead bird--it wasn't the same then. More than once I have started
then, and looked round when a fish jumped, expecting to see a
face sticking up out of the water with its eyes shut. I think we
all felt something like that at the time.

One afternoon we were putting a fresh service on the
jib-sheet-pennant. It wasn't my watch, but I was standing by
looking on. Just then Jack Benton came up from below, and went to
look for his pipe under the anchor. His face was hard and drawn,
and his eyes were cold like steel balls. He hardly ever spoke
now, but he did his duty as usual, and nobody had to complain of
him, though we were all beginning to wonder how long his grief
for his dead brother was going to last like that. I watched him
as he crouched down, and ran his hand into the hiding-place for
the pipe. When he stood up, he had two pipes in his hand.

Now, I remembered very well seeing him throw one of those pipes
away, early in the morning after the gale; and it came to me now,
and I didn't suppose he kept a stock of them under the anchor. I
caught sight of his face, and it was greenish white, like the
foam on shallow water, and he stood a long time looking at the
two pipes. He wasn't looking to see which was his, for I wasn't
five yards from him as he stood, and one of those pipes had been
smoked that day, and was shiny where his hand had rubbed it, and
the bone mouthpiece was chafed white where his teeth had bitten
it. The other was water-logged. It was swelled and cracking with
wet, and it looked to me as if there were a little green weed on
it.

Jack Benton turned his head rather stealthily as I looked away,
and then he hid the thing in his trousers pocket, and went aft on
the lee side, out of sight. The men had got the sheet pennant on
a stretch to serve it, but I ducked under it and stood where I
could see what Jack did, just under the fore-staysail. He
couldn't see me, and he was looking about for something. His hand
shook as he picked up a bit of half-bent iron rod, about a foot
long, that had been used for turning an eye-bolt, and had been
left on the main-hatch. His hand shook as he got a piece of
marline out of his pocket, and made the wate