the decks, not aloft, not anywhere.  He had looked at nothing!  And somehow Carter felt himself more lonely and without support than when he had been left alone by that man in charge of two ships entangled amongst the Shallows and environed by some sinister mystery.  Since that man had come back, instead of welcome relief Carter felt his responsibility rest on his young shoulders with tenfold weight.  His profound conviction was that Lingard should be roused.

“Captain Lingard,” he burst out in desperation; “you can’t say I have worried you very much since this morning when I received you at the side, but I must be told something.  What is it going to be with us?  Fight or run?”

Lingard stopped short and now there was no doubt in Carter’s mind that the Captain was looking at him.  There was no room for any doubt before that stern and enquiring gaze.  “Aha!” thought Carter.  “This has startled him”; and feeling that his shyness had departed he pursued his advantage.  “For the fact of the matter is, sir, that, whatever happens, unless I am to be your man you will have no officer.  I had better tell you at once that I have bundled that respectable, crazy, fat Shaw out of the ship.  He was upsetting all hands.  Yesterday I told him to go and get his dunnage together because I was going to send him aboard the yacht.  He couldn’t have made more uproar about it if I had proposed to chuck him overboard.  I warned him that if he didn’t go quietly I would have him tied up like a sheep ready for slaughter.  However, he went down the ladder on his own feet, shaking his fist at me and promising to have me hanged for a pirate some day.  He can do no harm on board the yacht.  And now, sir, it’s for you to give orders and not for me—­thank God!”

Lingard turned away, abruptly.  Carter didn’t budge.  After a moment he heard himself called from the other side of the deck and obeyed with alacrity.

“What’s that story of a man you picked up on the coast last evening?” asked Lingard in his gentlest tone.  “Didn’t you tell me something about it when I came on board?”

“I tried to,” said Carter, frankly.  “But I soon gave it up.  You didn’t seem to pay any attention to what I was saying.  I thought you wanted to be left alone for a bit.  What can I know of your ways, yet, sir?  Are you aware, Captain Lingard, that since this morning I have been down five times at the cabin door to look at you?  There you sat. . . .”

He paused and Lingard said:  “You have been five times down in the cabin?”

“Yes.  And the sixth time I made up my mind to make you take some notice of me.  I can’t be left without orders.  There are two ships to look after, a lot of things to be done. . . .”

“There is nothing to be done,” Lingard interrupted with a mere murmur but in a tone which made Carter keep silent for a while.

“Even to know that much would have been something to go by,” he ventured at last.  “I couldn’t let you sit there with the sun getting pretty low and a long night before us.”