"Go or stay, it's all one to me."

"I hope you don't really mean that?" said Crayford.

"I do."

"I am sorry to hear it, Wardour."

Captain Helding answered the general suggestion in favor of volunteering
by a question which instantly checked the rising enthusiasm of the
meeting.

"Well," he said, "suppose we say volunteers. Who volunteers to stop in
the huts?"

There was a dead silence. The officers and men looked at each other
confusedly. The captain continued:

"You see we can't settle it by volunteering. You all want to go. Every
man among us who has the use of his limbs naturally wants to go. But
what is to become of those who have not got the use of their limbs? Some
of us must stay here, and take care of the sick."

Everybody admitted that this was true.

"So we get back again," said the captain, "to the old question--Who
among the able-bodied is to go? and who is to stay? Captain Ebsworth
says, and I say, let chance decide it. Here are dice. The numbers run
as high as twelve--double sixes. All who throw under six, stay; all who
throw over six, go. Officers of the _Wanderer_ and the _Sea-mew_, do you
agree to that way of meeting the difficulty?"

All the officers agreed, with the one exception of Wardour, who still
kept silence.

"Men of the _Wanderer_ and _Sea-mew_, your officers agree to cast lots.
Do you agree too?"

The men agreed without a dissentient voice. Crayford handed the box and
the dice to Captain Helding.

"You throw first, sir. Under six, 'Stay.' Over six, 'Go.'"

Captain Helding cast the dice; the top of the cask serving for a table.
He threw seven.

"Go," said Crayford. "I congratulate you, sir. Now for my own chance."
He cast the dice in his turn. Three! "Stay! Ah, well! well! if I can do
my duty, and be of use to others, what does it matter whether I go or
stay? Wardour, you are next, in the absence of your first lieutenant."

Wardour prepared to cast, without shaking the dice.

"Shake the box, man!" cried Crayford. "Give yourself a chance of luck!"

Wardour persisted in letting the dice fall out carelessly, just as they
lay in the box.

"Not I!" he muttered to himself. "I've done with luck." Saying those
words, he threw down the empty box, and seated himself on the nearest
chest, without looking to see how the dice had fallen.

Crayford examined them. "Six!" he exclaimed. "There! you have a second
chance, in spite of yourself. You are neither under nor over--you throw