"It's as clear as daylight," affirmed the captain impatiently, because in his heart he was not certain.

And Tom the best seaman in the ship for one, the good-humouredly deferential friend of his boyhood for the other, was becoming endowed with a compelling fascination, like a symbolic figure of loyalty appealing to their feelings and their conscience, so that they could not detach their thoughts from his safety.

Several times they went up on deck, only to look at the coast, as if it could tell them something of his fate.

It stretched away, lengthening in the distance, mute, naked, and savage, veiled now and then by the slanting cold shafts of rain.

The westerly swell rolled its interminable angry lines of foam and big dark clouds flew over the ship in a sinister procession.
"I wish to goodness you had done what your little friend in the yellow hat wanted you to do," said the commander of the sloop late in the afternoon with visible exasperation.
"Do you, sir ?" answered Byrne, bitter with positive anguish.