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"It frequently happens" said Clive pontifically--the longer the captain's illness lasted the more freely he would discuss it--"that an injury, a fall, or a burn, or a fracture, will completely unbalance a mind that previously was a little unstable."

"A little unstable!" said Lomax. "Did he turn out the marines in the middle watch to hunt for mutineers in the hold? Ask Mr. Hornblower here, ask Mr. Bush, if they thought he was a little unstable. He had Hornblower doing watch and watch, and Bush and Roberts and Buckland himself out of bed every hour day and night. He was as mad as a hatter even then."

It was extraordinary how freely tongues wagged now in the ship, now that there was no fear of reports being made to the captain.

"At least we can make seamen out of the crew now" said Carberry, the master, with a satisfaction in his voice that was echoed round the wardroom. Sail drill and gun drill, tautened discipline and hard work, were pulling together a crew that had fast been disintegrating. It was what Buckland obviously delighted in, what he had been itching to do from the moment they had left the Eddystone behind, and exercising the crew helped to lift his mind out of the other troubles that beset it.