very act of hasty cork-drawing. The sight, I may say, gave me an
awful scare. I was well aware of the morbidly sensitive nature of
the man. Fortunately, I managed to draw back unseen, and, taking
care to stamp heavily with my sea-boots at the foot of the cabin
stairs, I made my second entry. But for this unexpected glimpse,
no act of his during the next twenty-four hours could have given me
the slightest suspicion that all was not well with his nerve.



III.



Quite another case, and having nothing to do with drink, was that
of poor Captain B-. He used to suffer from sick headaches, in his
young days, every time he was approaching a coast. Well over fifty
years of age when I knew him, short, stout, dignified, perhaps a
little pompous, he was a man of a singularly well-informed mind,
the least sailor-like in outward aspect, but certainly one of the
best seamen whom it has been my good luck to serve under. He was a
Plymouth man, I think, the son of a country doctor, and both his
elder boys were studying medicine. He commanded a big London ship,
fairly well known in her day. I thought no end of him, and that is
why I remember with a peculiar satisfaction the last words he spoke
to me on board his ship after an eighteen months' voyage. It was
in the dock in Dundee, where we had brought a full cargo of jute
from Calcutta. We had been paid off that morning, and I had come
on board to take my sea-chest away and to say good-bye. In his
slightly lofty but courteous way he inquired what were my plans. I