The officers echoed the words cheerfully.

“Right! right!  No time to lose.”

Captain Helding resumed: 

“The plan proposed is, that a detachment of the able-bodied officers and men among us should set forth this very day, and make another effort to reach the nearest inhabited settlements, from which help and provisions may be dispatched to those who remain here.  The new direction to be taken, and the various precautions to be adopted, are all drawn out ready.  The only question now before us is, Who is to stop here, and who is to undertake the journey?”

The officers answered the question with one accord—­“Volunteers!”

The men echoed their officers.  “Ay, ay, volunteers.”

Wardour still preserved his sullen silence.  Crayford noticed him. standing apart from the rest, and appealed to him personally.

“Do you say nothing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Wardour answered.  “Go or stay, it’s all one to me.”

“I hope you don’t really mean that?” said Crayford.

“I do.”

“I am sorry to hear it, Wardour.”

Captain Helding answered the general suggestion in favor of volunteering by a question which instantly checked the rising enthusiasm of the meeting.

“Well,” he said, “suppose we say volunteers.  Who volunteers to stop in the huts?”

There was a dead silence.  The officers and men looked at each other confusedly.  The captain continued: 

“You see we can’t settle it by volunteering.  You all want to go.  Every man among us who has the use of his limbs naturally wants to go.  But what is to become of those who have not got the use of their limbs?  Some of us must stay here, and take care of the sick.”

Everybody admitted that this was true.

“So we get back again,” said the captain, “to the old question—­Who among the able-bodied is to go? and who is to stay?  Captain Ebsworth says, and I say, let chance decide it.  Here are dice.  The numbers run as high as twelve—­double sixes.  All who throw under six, stay; all who throw over six, go.  Officers of the Wanderer and the Sea-mew, do you agree to that way of meeting the difficulty?”

All the officers agreed, with the one exception of Wardour, who still kept silence.

“Men of the Wanderer and Sea-mew, your officers agree to cast lots.  Do you agree too?”

The men agreed without a dissentient voice.  Crayford handed the box and the dice to Captain Helding.

“You throw first, sir.  Under six, ‘Stay.’  Over six, ‘Go.’”

Captain Helding cast the dice; the top of the cask serving for a table.  He threw seven.

“Go,” said Crayford.  “I congratulate you, sir.  Now for my own chance.”  He cast the dice in his turn.  Three!  “Stay!  Ah, well! well! if I can do my duty, and be of use to others, what does it matter whether I go or stay?  Wardour, you are next, in the absence of your first lieutenant.”