I'd welcome it, Mr. Powell.
I'd rejoice. And dam' me I would talk back too till I roused him. He's
a shadow of himself. He walks about his ship like a ghost. He's fading
away right before our eyes. But of course you don't see. You don't care
a hang. Why should you?"

Mr. Powell did not wait for more. He went down on the main deck. Without
taking the mate's jeremiads seriously he put them beside the words of Mr.
Smith. He had grown already attached to Captain Anthony. There was
something not only attractive but compelling in the man. Only it is very
difficult for youth to believe in the menace of death. Not in the fact
itself, but in its proximity to a breathing, moving, talking, superior
human being, showing no sign of disease. And Mr. Powell thought that
this talk was all nonsense. But his curiosity was awakened. There was
something, and at any time some circumstance might occur . . . No, he
would never find out . . . There was nothing to find out, most likely.
Mr. Powell went to his room where he tried to read a book he had already
read a good many times. Presently a bell rang for the officers' supper.

CHAPTER SIX--. . . A MOONLESS NIGHT, THICK WITH STARS ABOVE, VERY DARK ON
THE WATER

In the mess-room Powell found Mr. Franklin hacking at a piece of cold
salt beef with a table knife. The mate, fiery in the face and rolling
his eyes over that task, explained that the carver belonging to the mess-
room could not be found. The steward, present also, complained savagely
of the cook. The fellow got things into his galley and then lost them.
Mr. Franklin tried to pacify him with mournful firmness.

"There, there! That will do. We who have been all these years together
in the ship have other things to think about than quarrelling among
ourselves."

Mr. Powell thought with exasperation: "Here he goes again," for this
utterance had nothing cryptic for him. The steward having withdrawn
morosely, he was not surprised to hear the mate strike the usual note.
That morning the mizzen topsail tie had carried away (probably a
defective link) and something like forty feet of chain and wire-rope,
mixed up with a few heavy iron blocks, had crashed down from aloft on the
poop with a terrifying racket.

"Did you notice the captain then, Mr. Powell. Did you notice?"

Powell confessed frankly that he was too scared himself when all that lot
of gear came down on deck to notice anything.

"The gin-bloc