at my elbow saying: "The captain asks whether you mean to come in,
sir, and have something to eat to-day."

I went into the cuddy. My captain sat at the head of the table
like a statue. There was a strange motionlessness of everything in
that pretty little cabin. The swing-table which for seventy odd
days had been always on the move, if ever so little, hung quite
still above the soup-tureen. Nothing could have altered the rich
colour of my commander's complexion, laid on generously by wind and
sea; but between the two tufts of fair hair above his ears, his
skull, generally suffused with the hue of blood, shone dead white,
like a dome of ivory. And he looked strangely untidy. I perceived
he had not shaved himself that day; and yet the wildest motion of
the ship in the most stormy latitudes we had passed through, never
made him miss one single morning ever since we left the Channel.
The fact must be that a commander cannot possibly shave himself
when his ship is aground. I have commanded ships myself, but I
don't know; I have never tried to shave in my life.

He did not offer to help me or himself till I had coughed markedly
several times. I talked to him professionally in a cheery tone,
and ended with the confident assertion:

"We shall get her off before midnight, sir."

He smiled faintly without looking up, and muttered as if to
himself:

"Yes, yes; the captain put the ship ashore and we got her off."