From Mr. Powell's description Franklin was a short, thick black-haired
man, bald on the top. His head sunk between the shoulders, his staring
prominent eyes and a florid colour, gave him a rather apoplectic
appearance. In repose, his congested face had a humorously melancholy
expression.
The ship-keeper having given him up all the keys and having been chased
forward with the admonition to mind his own business and not to chatter
about what did not concern him, Mr. Franklin went under the poop. He
opened one door after another; and, in the saloon, in the captain's state-
room and everywhere, he stared anxiously as if expecting to see on the
bulkheads, on the deck, in the air, something unusual--sign, mark,
emanation, shadow--he hardly knew what--some subtle change wrought by the
passage of a girl. But there was nothing. He entered the unoccupied
stern cabin and spent some time there unscrewing the two stern ports. In
the absence of all material evidences his uneasiness was passing away.
With a last glance round he came out and found himself in the presence of
his captain advancing from the other end of the saloon.
Franklin, at once, looked for the girl. She wasn't to be seen. The
captain came up quickly. 'Oh! you are here, Mr. Franklin.' And the mate
said, 'I was giving a little air to the place, sir.' Then the captain,
his hat pulled down over his eyes, laid his stick on the table and asked
in his kind way: 'How did you find your mother, Franklin?'--'The old
lady's first-rate, sir, thank you.' And then they had nothing to say to
each other. It was a strange and disturbing feeling for Franklin. He,
just back from leave, the ship just come to her loading berth, the
captain just come on board, and apparently nothing to say! The several
questions he had been anxious to ask as to various things which had to be
done had slipped out of his mind. He, too, felt as though he had nothing
to say.
The captain, picking up his stick off the table, marched into his state-
room and shut the door after him. Franklin remained still for a moment
and then started slowly to go on deck. But before he had time to reach
the other end of the saloon he heard himself called by name. He turned
round. The captain was staring from the doorway of his state-room.
Franklin said, "Yes, sir." But the captain, silent, leaned a little
forward grasping the door handle. So he, Franklin, walked aft keeping
his eyes on him. When he had come up quite close he said again, "Yes,
sir?" interrogatively. Still silence. The mate didn't like to be stared
at in that manner, a manner quite new in his captain, with a defiant and
self-conscious stare, like a man who feels ill and dares you to notice
it. Franklin gazed at his captain, felt that there was something wrong,
and in his simplicity voiced his feelings by asking point-blank: "What's wrong, sir?"