In this perpetual disappointment, my courage did not fail me, but my spirits dwindled; and Nares himself grew silent and morose.

At night, when supper was done, we passed an hour in the cabin, mostly without speech: I, sometimes dozing over a book; Nares, sullenly but busily drilling sea-shells with the instrument called a Yankee Fiddle.

A stranger might have supposed we were estranged; as a matter of fact, in this silent comradeship of labour, our intimacy grew.
I had been struck, at the first beginning of our enterprise upon the wreck, to find the men so ready at the captain's lightest word.

I dare not say they liked, but I can never deny that they admired him thoroughly.

A mild word from his mouth was more valued than flattery and half a dollar from myself; if he relaxed at all from his habitual attitude of censure, smiling alacrity surrounded him; and I was led to think his theory of captainship, even if pushed to excess, reposed upon some ground of reason.