r."

When I had come up to him he had stood up from force of instinct,
and had laid his hands on the spokes as if he were steering,
though the wheel was lashed; but he still bent his face down, and
it was half hidden by the edge of his sou'wester, while he seemed
to be staring at the compass. He spoke in a very low voice, but
that was natural, for the captain had left his door open when he
turned in, as it was a warm night in spite of the storm, and
there was no fear of shipping any more water now.

"What put it into your head to whistle like that, Jack? You've
been at sea long enough to know better."

He said something, but I couldn't hear the words; it sounded as
if he were denying the charge.

"Somebody whistled," I said.

He didn't answer, and then, I don't know why, perhaps because the
old man hadn't given us a drink, I cut half an inch off the plug
of tobacco I had in my oilskin pocket, and gave it to him. He
knew my tobacco was good, and he shoved it into his mouth with a
word of thanks. I was on the weather side of the wheel.

"Go forward and see if you can find Jim," I said.

He started a little, and then stepped back and passed behind me,
and was going along the weather side. Maybe his silence about the
whistling had irritated me, and his taking it for granted that
because we were hove to and it was a dark night, he might go
forward any way he pleased. Anyhow, I stopped him, though I spoke
good-naturedly enough.

"Pass to leeward, Jack," I said.

He didn't answer, but crossed the deck between the binnacle and
the deck-house to the lee side. She was only falling off and
coming to, and riding the big seas as easily as possible, but the
man was not steady on his feet and reeled against the corner of
the deck-house and then against the lee rail. I was quite sure he
couldn't have had anything to drink, for neither of the brothers
were the kind to hide rum from their shipmates, if they had any,
and the only spirits that were aboard were locked up in the
captain's cabin. I wondered whether he had been hit by the
throat-halliard block and was hurt.

I left the wheel and went after him, but when I got to the corner
of the deck-house I saw that he was on a full run forward, so I
went back. I watched the compass for a while, to see how far she
went off, and she must have come to again half a dozen times
before I heard voices, more than three or four, forward; and then
I heard the little West Indies cook's