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'O, that's it then,' said Herrick. 'I don't believe they knew where they
were.'
'I think so too,' said Uncle Ned. 'I think no savvy. This one mo'
betta,' he added, pointing to the house where the drunken captain
slumbered: 'Take-a-sun all-e-time.'
The implied last touch completed Herrick's picture of the life and death
of his two predecessors; of their prolonged, sordid, sodden sensuality
as they sailed, they knew not whither, on their last cruise. He held but
a twinkling and unsure belief in any future state; the thought of one
of punishment he derided; yet for him (as for all) there dwelt a horror
about the end of the brutish man. Sickness fell upon him at the image
thus called up; and when he compared it with the scene in which himself
was acting, and considered the doom that seemed to brood upon the
schooner, a horror that was almost superstitious fell upon him. And
yet the strange thing was, he did not falter. He who had proved his
incapacity in so many fields, being now falsely placed amid duties
which he did not understand, without help, and it might be said without
countenance, had hitherto surpassed expectation; and even the shameful
misconduct and shocking disclosures of that night seemed but to nerve
and strengthen him. He had sold his honour; he vowed it should not be in
vain; 'it shall be no fault of mine if this miscarry,' he repeated. And
in his heart he wondered at himself. Living rage no doubt supported him;
no doubt also, the sense of the last cast, of the ships burned, of all
doors closed but one, which is so strong a tonic to the merely weak, and
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