CHAPTER TWO.
THE HAMMER-HEAD.
For some time the castaways had been seated in moody silence, now and then glancing at the corpse in the bottom of the boat, some of them no doubt thinking how long it might be before they themselves would occupy the same situation.
But now and then, also, their looks were turned upon one another, not hopefully, but with a mechanical effort of despair.
In one of these occasional glances, Captain Redwood noticed the unnatural glare in the eyes of the surviving sailor, as also did the Irishman.

Simultaneously were both struck with it, and a significant look was exchanged between them.
For a period of over twenty hours this man had been behaving oddly; and they had conceived something more than a suspicion of his insanity.

The death of the sailor lying at the bottom of the boat, now the ninth, had rendered him for a time more tranquil, and he sat quiet on his seat, with elbows resting on his knees, his cheeks held between the palms of his hands.

But the wild stare in his eyes seemed to have become only more intensified as he kept them fixed upon the corpse of his comrade.
It was a look worse than wild; it had in it the expression of _craving_.
On perceiving it, and after a moment spent in reflection, the captain made a sign to the ship-carpenter, at the same time saying,-- "Murtagh, it's no use our keeping the body any longer in the boat.

Let us give it such burial as the sea vouchsafes to a sailor,--and a true one he was." He spoke these words quietly, and in a low tone, as if not intending them to be heard by the suspected maniac.
"A thrue sailor!" rejoined the Irishman.