Though I saw him once or twice afterwards, these were really the last words of intelligible conversation that I ever had with Captain Astley.
"It seems that we are in some danger," said Bastin, in an unmoved kind of way.

"I think that was a good idea of the captain's, to put up a petition, I mean, but as Bickley will scarcely care to join in it I will go into the cabin and do so myself." Bickley snorted, then said: "Confound that captain! Why did he play such a trick upon us about the barometer?
Humphrey, I believe he had been drinking." "So do I," I said, looking at the whisky bottle.

"Otherwise, after taking those precautions to keep us in the dark, he would not have let on like that." "Well," said Bickley, "he can't get to the liquor, except through this saloon, as it is locked up forward with the other stores." "That's nothing," I replied, "as doubtless he has a supply of his own; rum, I expect.

We must take our chance." Bickley nodded, and suggested that we should go on deck to see what was happening.

So we went.