heads together and were talking earnestly.

While they talked, the helmsman suddenly laughed and prodded Mr. Falk in
the ribs with his thumb. Like a flash it came over me that it was Kipping's
trick at the wheel. Here was absolute proof that, when the second mate and
the mild man thought no one was spying upon them, they were on uncommonly
friendly terms. Yet I did not dream that I had stumbled on anything graver
than to confirm one of those idle rumors that set tongues wagging in the
forecastle, but that really are too trifling to be worth a second thought.

When the crew of a ship is cut off from all communication with the world at
large, it is bound, for want of greater interests, to find in the
monotonous daily round something about which to weave a pretty tale.

At that moment, to my consternation, the bell struck four times. As the two
dark figures separated, I started back out of sight. Kipping's trick at the
wheel was over, and his relief would come immediately along the very route
that I had chosen; unless I got away at once I should in all probability be
discovered on the quarterdeck and trounced within an inch of my life. Then
suddenly, as if to punish my temerity, the cloud passed and the moonlight
streamed down on deck.

Darting lightly back to the companion-ladder, I slipped down it and was on
the point of escaping forward when I heard slow steps. In terror lest the
relief spy me and reveal my presence by some exclamation that Kipping or
the second mate would overhear, I threw myself down flat on the deck just
forward of the scuttle-butt, where the moon cast a shadow; and with the
fervent hope that I should appear to be only a heap of old sail, I lay
without moving a muscle.