Meantime the body of the ship's commander is being enfeebled by want of appetite; at least, such is my experience, though "enfeebled" is perhaps not exactly the word.I might say, rather, that it is spiritualized by a disregard for food, sleep, and all the ordinary comforts, such as they are, of sea life.In one or two cases I have known that detachment from the grosser needs of existence remain regrettably incomplete in the matter of drink.
But these two cases were, properly speaking, pathological cases, and the only two in all my sea experience.In one of these two instances of a craving for stimulants, developed from sheer anxiety, I cannot assert that the man's seaman-like qualities were impaired in the least.It was a very anxious case, too, the land being made suddenly, close-to, on a wrong bearing, in thick weather, and during a fresh onshore gale.Going below to speak to him soon after, I was unlucky enough to catch my captain in the very act of hasty cork-drawing.The sight, I may say, gave me an awful scare.I was well aware of the morbidly sensitive nature of the man.Fortunately, I managed to draw back unseen, and, taking care to stamp heavily with my sea-boots at the foot of the cabin stairs, I made my second entry.But for this unexpected glimpse, no act of his during the next twenty-four hours could have given me the slightest suspicion that all was not well with his nerve.