“Should
we not just kill her and be done with it?” Ed the cook asks the
Captain once the girl is out of sight. “We'll all feel a lot safer
once she's gone.”
“I'll
not have killin' in the name of superstition,” Captain Briggs
replies, “Not on my boat.” He looks across the remainder of his
crew. “You're all safe where she is,” he tells them, “now be
about your duties, that wind could come at any moment.”
The
ship gradually drifts into its usual rhythm, but a cloud of anguish
and paranoia hangs around her sails. The men find work to do above
deck, sharing an unspoken reluctance to go below. The Captain,
meanwhile, spends another fretful day pacing his cabin, flicking
pointlessly at his charts. He's waiting for a wind that doesn't
come, dreading a sunset that is inevitable.
