“Methinks ’tis a case of actum est de nobis,” remarked Diggle pleasantly.

“Confound you!” said the captain with a burst of anger.  “What could I expect with a gallows bird like you aboard?  ’Tis enough to sink a vessel without shot.”

Diggle’s face darkened.  But in a moment his smile returned.

“You are overwrought, captain,” he said; “you are unstrung.  ’Twould be ridiculous to take amiss words said in haste.  In cold blood—­well, you know me, Captain Barker.  I will leave you to recover from your brief madness.”

He went below.  The captain was left with Mr. Toley and the other officers.  Barker and Toley always got on well together, for the simple reason that the mate never thwarted his superior, never resented his abuse, but went quietly his own way.  He listened now for a quarter of an hour, with fixed sadness of expression, while Captain Barker poured the vials of his wrath upon everything under the sun.  When the captain had come to an end, and sunk into an estate of lowering dudgeon, Mr. Toley said quietly: 

“’Tis all you say, sir, and more.  I guess I’ve never seen a harder case.  But while you was speaking, something you said struck a sort of idea into my brain.”

“That don’t happen often.  What is it?”

“Why, the sort of idea that came to me out o’ what you was saying was just this.  How would it be to take soundings?”

“So, that’s your notion, is it?  Hang me, are you a fool like the rest of ’em?  You’re always taking soundings!  What in the name of thunder do you want to take soundings for?”

“Nothing particular, cap’n.  That was the kind o’ notion that come of what you was saying.  Of course it depends on the depths hereabouts.”

“Deep enough to sink you and your notions and all that’s like to come of ’em.  Darned if I ain’t got the most lubberly company ever mortal man was plagued with.  Officers and men, there en’t one of you as is worth your salt, and you with your long face and your notions—­why, hang me, you’re no more good than the dirtiest waister afloat.”

Mr. Toley smiled sadly, and ventured on no rejoinder.  After the captain’s outburst none of the group dared to utter a word.  This pleased him no better; he cursed them all for standing mum; and spent ten minutes in reviling them in turn.  Then his passion appeared to have burnt itself out.  Turning suddenly to the melancholy mate, he said roughly: 

“Go and heave your lead, then, and be hanged to it.”

Mr. Toley walked away aft and ordered one of the men to heave the deep-sea lead.  The plummet, shaped like the frustum of a cone, and weighing thirty pounds, was thrown out from the side in the line of the vessel’s drift.

“By the mark sixty, less five,” sang out the man when the lead touched the bottom.

“I guess that’ll do,” said the first mate, returning to the quarterdeck.

“Well, what about your notion?” said the captain scornfully.  But he listened quietly and with an intent look upon his weatherbeaten face as Mr. Toley explained.