foretopsail halyards; look alive, lads!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" replied the men.

There was no occasion whatever for these orders. The captain knew that
well enough, but he had his own reasons for giving them. The men knew
that, too, and they understood his reasons when they observed the
increased sternness of his eyes, and the compression of his lips.

Inclination and duty! What wars go on in the hearts of men--high and
low, rich and poor--between these two. What varied fortune follows man,
according as the one or the other carries the day.

"Please, sir," said a gruff, broad-shouldered, and extremely short man,
with little or no forehead, a hard, vacant face, and a pair of enormous
red whispers; "please, sir, Sam Baker's took very bad; I think it would
be as well if you could give him a little physic, sir; a tumbler of
Epsom, or some-think of that sort."

"Why, Mr Dicey, there can't be anything very far wrong with Baker,"
said the captain, looking down at his second mate; "he seems to me one
of the healthiest men in the ship. What's the matter with him?"

"Well, I can't say, sir," replied Mr Dicey, "but he looks 'orrible bad,
all yellow and green about the gills, and fearful red round the eyes.
But what frightens me most is that I heard him groanin' very heavy about
a quarter of an hour ago, and then I saw him suddenly fling himself into
his 'ammock and begin blubberin' like a child. Now, sir, I say, when a
grow'd-up man gives way like that, there must be some-think far wrong
with his inside. And it's a serious thing, sir, to take a sick man on
such a voyage as this."

"Does he not say what's wrong with him?" asked the captain.

"No, sir; he don't. He says it's nothin', and he'll be all right if
he's only let alone. I did hear him once or twice muttering some-think
about his wife and child; you know, sir, he's got a young wife, and she
had a baby about two months 'fore we came away, but I can't think that's
got much to do with it, for _I've_ got a wife myself, sir, and six
children, two of 'em bein' babies, and that don't upset _me_, and
Baker's a much stronger man."

"You are right, Mr Dicey, he is a much stronger man than you," replied
the captain, "and I doubt not that his strength will enable him to get
over this without the aid of physic."

"Very well, sir," said Mr Dicey.

The second mate was a man whose countenance never showed any signs of
emotion, no matter what he felt. He seldom laughed, or