It was what they called an ugly job, and they were not loth to accept the captain's assurance that the gambler had gone ashore.
While August was unwilling to deliver the hunted villain to a savage death, he began to ask himself why he might not in some way use his terror in the interest of justice.

For he had just then seen the wretched and bewildered face of Norman looking ghastly enough in the fog of the morning.
At last, full of this notion, and possessed, too, by his habit of accomplishing at all hazards what he had begun, August strolled back through the now quiet engine-room to the deck-passengers' quarter.

It was about half an hour before six o'clock, when the dog-watch would expire and he must go on duty again.

In one of the uppermost of the filthy bunks, in the darkest corner, near the wheel, he discovered what he thought to be his man.

The deck-passengers were still asleep, lying around stupidly.