clockwork.

"They meet the coxswain and he tells them: Yes! He's going out
again. No, they ain't in danger on board--not yet. But the ship's
chance is very poor. Still, if the wind doesn't pipe up again and
the sea goes down something might be tried. After some talk he
agrees to take Cloete on board; supposed to be with an urgent
message from the owners to the captain.

"Whenever Cloete looks at the sky he feels comforted; it looks so
threatening. George Dunbar follows him about with a white face and
saying nothing. Cloete takes him to have a drink or two, and by
and by he begins to pick up. . . That's better, says Cloete; dash
me if it wasn't like walking about with a dead man before. You
ought to be throwing up your cap, man. I feel as if I wanted to
stand in the street and cheer. Your brother is safe, the ship is
lost, and we are made men.

"Are you certain she's lost? asks George. It would be an awful
blow after all the agonies I have gone through in my mind, since
you first spoke to me, if she were to be got off--and--and--all
this temptation to begin over again. . . For we had nothing to do
with this; had we?

"Of course not, says Cloete. Wasn't your brother himself in
charge? It's providential. . . Oh! cries George, shocked. . .
Well, say it's the devil, says Cloete, cheerfully. I don't mind!
You had nothing to do with it any more than a baby unborn, you
great softy, you. . . Cloete has got so that he almost loved George
Dunbar. Well. Yes. That was so. I don't mean he respected him.