'Me mate? Why, I'm a landsman!' cried Herrick.

'Guess you've got to learn,' said the captain. 'You don't fancy I'm
going to skip and leave you rotting on the beach perhaps? I'm not that
sort, old man. And you're handy anyway; I've been shipmates with worse.'

'God knows I can't refuse,' said Herrick. 'God knows I thank you from my
heart.'

'That's all right,' said the captain. 'But it ain't all.' He turned
aside to light a cigar.

'What else is there?' asked the other, with a pang of undefinable alarm.

'I'm coming to that,' said Davis, and then paused a little. 'See here,'
he began, holding out his cigar between his finger and thumb, 'suppose
you figure up what this'll amount to. You don't catch on? Well, we
get two months' advance; we can't get away from Papeete--our creditors
wouldn't let us go--for less; it'll take us along about two months
to get to Sydney; and when we get there, I just want to put it to you
squarely: What the better are we?'

'We're off the beach at least,' said Herrick.

'I guess there's a beach at Sydney,' returned the captain; 'and I'll
tell you one thing, Mr Herrick--I don't mean to try. No, SIR! Sydney
will never see me.'

'Speak out plain,' said Herrick.

'Plain Dutch,' replied the captain. 'I'm going to own that schooner.
It's nothing new; it's done every year in the Pacific. Stephens stole a
schooner the other day, didn't he? Hayes and Pease stole vessels all
the time. And it's the making of the crowd of us. See here--you think of
that cargo. Champagne! why, it's like as if it was put up on purpose. In
Peru we'll sell that liquor off at the pier-head, and the schooner after
it, if we can find a fool to buy her; and then light out for the mines.
If you'll back me up, I stake my life I carry it through.'

'Captain,' said Herrick, with a quailing voice, 'don't do it!'

'I'm desperate,' returned Davis. 'I've got a chance; I may never get
another. Herrick, say the word; back me up; I think we've starved
together long enough for that.'

'I can't do it. I'm sorry. I can't do it. I've not fallen as low as
that,' said Herrick, deadly pale.

'What did you say this morning?' said Davis. 'That you couldn't beg?
It's the one thing or the other, my son.'

'Ah, but this is the jail!' cried Herrick. 'Don't tempt me. It's the
jail.'

'Did you hear what the skipper said on board that schooner?' pursued the
captain. 'Well, I tell you he talked straight. The French have let us
alone for a long time; It can't last longer; they've got their eye on
us; and as sure as you live, in three weeks you'll be in jail whatever
you do. I read it in the consul's face.'

'You forget, captain,' said the young man. 'There is another way. I can
die; and to say truth, I think I should have died three years ago.'

The captain folded his arms and looked the other in the face. 'Yes,'
said he, 'yes, you can cut your throat; that's a frozen fact; much good
may it do you! And where do I come in?'

The light of a strange excitement came in Herrick's face. 'Both of us,'
said he, 'both of us together. It's not possible you can enjoy this
business. Come,' and he reached out a timid hand, 'a few strokes in the
lagoon--and rest!'

'I tell you, Herrick, I'm 'most tempted to answer you the way the man
does in the Bible, and say, "Get thee behind me, Satan!"' said the
captain. 'What! you think I would go drown myself, and I got children
starving? Enjoy it? No, by God, I do not enjoy it! but it's the row
I've got to hoe, and I'll hoe it till I drop right here. I have three of
them, you see, two boys and the one girl, Adar. The trouble is that you
are not a parent yourself. I tell you, Herrick, I love you,' the man
broke out; 'I didn't take to you at first, you were so anglified and
tony, but I love you now; it's a man that loves you stands here and
wrestles with you. I can't go to sea with the bummer alone; it's not
possible. Go drown yourself, and there goes my last chance--the last
chance of a poor miserable beast, earning a crust to feed his family.
I can't do nothing but sail ships, and I've no papers. And here I get
a chance, and you go back on me! Ah, you've no family, and that's where
the trouble is!'

'I have indeed,' said Herrick.

'Yes, I know,' said the captain, 'you think so. But no man's got
a family till he's got children. It's only the kids count. There's
something about the little shavers... I can't talk of them. And if
you thought a cent about this father that I hear you talk of, or that
sweetheart you were writing to this morning, you would feel like me. You
would say, What matters laws, and God, and that? My folks are hard up,
I belong to them, I'll get them bread, or, by God! I'll get them wealth,
if I have to burn down London for it. That's what you would say. And
I'll tell you more: your heart is saying so this living minute. I can
see it in your face. You're thinking, Here's poor friendship for the man
I've starved along of, and as for the girl that I set up to be in love
with, here's a mighty limp kind of a love that won't carry me as far
as 'most any man would go for a demijohn of whisky. There's not much
ROmance to that love, anyway; it's not the kind they carry on about in
songbooks. But what's the good of my carrying on talking, when it's all
in your inside as plain as print? I put the question to you once for
all. Are you going to desert me in my hour of need?--you know if I've
deserted you--or will you give me your hand, and try a fresh deal, and
go home (as like as not) a millionaire? Say no, and God pity me! Say
yes, and I'll make the little ones pray for you every night on their
bended knees. "God bless Mr Herrick!" that's what they'll say, one after
the other, the old girl sitting there holding stakes at the foot of the
bed, and the damned little innocents.. . He broke off. 'I don't often
rip out about the kids,' he said; 'but when I do, there's something
fetches loose.'

'Captain,' said Herrick faintly, 'is there nothing else?'

'I'll prophesy if you like,' said the captain with renewed vigour.
'Refuse this, because you think yourself too honest, and before a
month's out you'll be jailed for a sneak-thief. I give you the word
fair. I can see it, Herrick, if you can't; you're breaking down.
Don't think, if you refuse this chance, that you'll go on doing the
evangelical; you're about through with your stock; and before you know
where you are, you'll be right out on the other side. No, it's either
this for you; or else it's Caledonia. I bet you never were there, and
saw those white, shaved men, in their dust clothes and straw hats,
prowling around in gangs in the lamplight at Noumea; they look like
wolves, and they look like preachers, and they look like the sick; Hulsh
is a daisy to the best of them. Well, there's your company. They're
waiting for you, Herrick, and you got to go; and that's a prophecy.'

And as the man stood and shook through his great stature, he seemed
indeed like one in whom the spirit of divination worked and might utter
oracles. Herrick looked at him, and looked away; It seemed not decent to
spy upon such agitation; and the young man's courage sank.

'You talk of going home,' he objected. 'We could never do that.'

'WE could,' said the other. 'Captain Brown couldn't, nor Mr Hay, that
shipped mate with him couldn't. But what's that to do with Captain Davis
or Mr Herrick, you galoot?'

'But Hayes had these wild islands where he used to call,' came the next
fainter objection.

'We have the wild islands of Peru,' retorted Davis. 'They were wild
enough for Stephens, no longer agone than just last year. I guess
they'll be wild enough for us.'

'And the crew?'

'All Kanakas. Come, I see you're right, old man. I see you'll stand by.'
And the captain once more offered his hand.

'Have it your own way then,' said Herrick. 'I'll do it: a strange thing
for my father's son. But I'll do it. I'll stand by you, man, for good or
evil.'

'God bless you!' cried the captain, and stood silent. 'Herrick,' he
added with a smile, 'I believe I'd have died in my tracks, if you'd
said, No!'

And Herrick, looking at the man, half believed so also.

'And now we'll go break it to the bummer,' said Davis.

'I wonder how he'll take it,' said Herrick.

'Him? Jump at it!' was the reply.



Chapter 4. THE YELLOW FLAG

The schooner Farallone lay well out in the jaws of the pass, where the
terrified pilot had made haste to bring her to her moorings and escape.
Seen from the beach through the thin line of shipping, two objects stood
conspicuous to seaward: the little isle, on the one hand, with its palms
and the guns and batteries raised forty years before in defence of Queen
Pomare's capital; the outcast Farallone, upon the other, banished to the
threshold of the port, rolling there to her scuppers, and flaunting the
plague-flag as she rolled. A few sea birds screamed and cried about the
ship; and within easy range, a man-of-war guard boat hung off and on and
glittered with the weapons of marines. The exuberant daylight and the
blinding heaven of the tropics picked out and framed the pictures.

A neat boat, manned by natives in uniform, and steered by the doctor
of the port, put from shore towards three of the afternoon, and pulled
smartly for the schooner. The fore-sheets were heaped with sacks of
flour, onions, and potatoes, perched among which was Huish dressed as
a foremast hand; a heap of chests and cases impeded the action of the
oarsmen; and in the stern, by the left hand of the doctor, sat Herrick,
dressed in a fresh rig of slops, his brown beard trimmed to a point, a
pile of paper novels on his lap, and nursing the while between his feet
a chronometer, for which they had exchanged that of the Farallone, long
since run down and the rate lost.

They passed the guard boat, exchanging hails with the boat-swain's
mate in charge, and drew near at last to the forbidden ship. Not a cat
stirred, there was no speech of man; and the sea being exceeding high
outside, and the reef close to where the schooner lay, the clamour of
the surf hung round her like the sound of battle.

'Ohe la goelette!' sang out the doctor, with his best voice.

Instantly, from the house where they had been stowing away stores, first
Davis, and then the ragamuffin, swarthy crew made their appearance.

'Hullo, Hay, that you?' said the captain, leaning on the rail. 'Tell the
old man to lay her alongside, as if she was eggs. There's a hell of a
run of sea here, and his boat's brittle.'

The movement of the schooner was at that time more than usually violent.
Now she heaved her side as high as a deep sea steamer's, and showed the
flashing of her copper; now she swung swiftly toward the boat until her
scuppers gurgled.

'I hope you have sea legs,' observed the doctor. 'You will require
them.'

Indeed, to board the Farallone, in that exposed position where she lay,
was an affair of some dexterity. The less precious goods were hoisted
roughly in; the chronometer, after repeated failures, was passed gently
and successfully from hand to hand; and there remained only the more
difficult business of embarking Huish. Even that piece of dead weight
(shipped A.B. at eighteen dollars, and described by the captain to the
consul as an invaluable man) was at last hauled on board without mishap;
and the doctor, with civil salutations, took his leave.

The three co-adventurers looked at each other, and Davis heaved a breath
of relief.

'Now let's get this chronometer fixed,' said he, and led the way
into the house. It was a fairly spacious place; two staterooms and a
good-sized pantry opened from the main cabin; the bulkheads were
painted white, the floor laid with waxcloth. No litter, no sign of
life remained; for the effects of the dead men had been disinfected and
conveyed on shore. Only on the table, in a saucer, some sulphur burned,
and the fumes set them coughing as they entered. The captain peered into
the starboard stateroom, where the bed-clothes still lay tumbled in
the bunk, the blanket flung back as they had flung it back from the
disfigured corpse before its burial.

'Now, I told these niggers to tumble that truck overboard,' grumbled
Davis. 'Guess they were afraid to lay hands on it. Well, they've hosed
the place out; that's as much as can be expected, I suppose. Huish, lay
on to these blankets.'

'See you blooming well far enough first,' said Huish, drawing back.

'What's that?' snapped the captain. 'I'll tell you, my young friend, I
think you make a mistake. I'm captain here.'

'Fat lot I care,' returned the clerk.

'That so?' said Davis. 'Then you'll berth forward with the niggers! Walk
right out of this cabin.'

'Oh, I dessay!' said Huish. 'See any green in my eye? A lark's a lark.'

'Well, now, I'll explain this business, and you'll see (once for all)
just precisely how much lark there is to it,' said Davis. 'I'm captain,
and I'm going to be it. One thing of three. First, you take my orders
here as cabin steward, in which case you mess with us. Or second, you
refuse, and I pack you forward--and you get as quick as the word's said.
Or, third and last, I'll signal that man-of-war and send you ashore
under arrest for mutiny.'

'And, of course, I wouldn't blow the gaff? O no!' replied the jeering
Huish.

'And who's to believe you, my son?' inquired the captain. 'No, sir!
There ain't no lark about my captainising. Enough said. Up with these
blankets.'

Huish was no fool, he knew when he was beaten; and he was no coward
either, for he stepped to the bunk, took the infected bed-clothes
fairly in his arms, and carried them out of the house without a check or
tremor.

'I was waiting for the chance,' said Davis to Herrick. 'I needn't do the
same with you, because you understand it for yourself.'

'Are you going to berth here?' asked Herrick, following the captain into
the stateroom, where he began to adjust the chronometer in its place at
the bed-head.

'Not much!' replied he. 'I guess I'll berth on deck. I don't know as I'm
afraid, but I've no immediate use for confluent smallpox.'

'I don't know that I'm afraid either,' said Herrick. 'But the thought of
these two men sticks in my throat; that captain and mate dying here, one
opposite to the other. It's grim. I wonder what they said last?'

'Wiseman and Wishart?' said the captain. 'Probably mighty small
potatoes. That's a thing a fellow figures out for himself one way, and
the real business goes quite another. Perhaps Wiseman said, "Here old
man, fetch up the gin, I'm feeling powerful rocky." And perhaps Wishart
said, "Oh, hell!"'

'Well, that's grim enough,' said Herrick.

'And so it is,' said Davis. 'There; there's that chronometer fixed. And
now it's about time to up anchor and clear out.'

He lit a cigar and stepped on deck.

'Here, you! What's YOUR name?' he cried to one of the hands, a
lean-flanked, clean-built fellow from some far western island, and of a
darkness almost approaching to the African.

'Sally Day,' replied the man.

'Devil it is,' said the captain. 'Didn't know we had ladies on board.
Well, Sally, oblige me by hauling down that rag there. I'll do the same
for you another time.' He watched the yellow bunting as it was eased
past the cross-trees and handed down on deck. 'You'll float no more
on this ship,' he observed. 'Muster the people aft, Mr Hay,' he added,
speaking unnecessarily loud, 'I've a word to say to them.'

It was with a singular sensation that Herrick prepared for the first
time to address a crew. He thanked his stars indeed, that they were
natives. But even natives, he reflected, might be critics too quick
for such a novice as himself; they might perceive some lapse from that
precise and cut-and-dry English which prevails on board a ship; it was
even possible they understood no other; and he racked his brain, and
overhauled his reminiscences of sea romance for some appropriate words.

'Here, men! tumble aft!' he said. 'Lively now! All hands aft!'

They crowded in the alleyway like sheep.

'Here they are, sir,' said Herrick.

For some time the captain continued to face the stern; then turned with
ferocious suddenness on the crew, and seemed to enjoy their shrinking.

'Now,' he said, twisting his cigar in his mouth and toying with the
spokes of the wheel, 'I'm Captain Brown. I command this ship. This is
Mr Hay, first officer. The other white man is cabin steward, but he'll
stand watch and do his trick. My orders shall be obeyed smartly. You
savvy, "smartly"? There shall be no growling about the kaikai, which
will be above allowance. You'll put a handle to the mate's name, and
tack on "sir" to every order I give you. If you're smart and quick, I'll
make this ship comfortable for all hands.' He took the cigar out of his
mouth. 'If you're not,' he added, in a roaring voice, 'I'll make it a
floating hell. Now, Mr Hay, we'll pick watches, if you please.'

'All right,' said Herrick.

'You will please use "sir" when you address me, Mr Hay,' said the
captain. 'I'll take the lady. Step to starboard, Sally.' And then he
whispered in Herrick's ear: 'take the old man.'

'I'll take you, there,' said Herrick.

'What's your name?' said the captain. 'What's that you say? Oh, that's
no English; I'll have none of your highway gibberish on my ship. We'll
call you old Uncle Ned, because you've got no wool on the top of your
head, just the place where the wool ought to grow. Step to port, Uncle.
Don't you hear Mr Hay has picked you? Then I'll take the white man.
White Man, step to starboard. Now which of you two is the cook? You?
Then Mr Hay takes your friend in the blue dungaree. Step to port,
Dungaree. There, we know who we all are: Dungaree, Uncle Ned, Sally Day,
White Man, and Cook. All F.F.V.'s I guess. And now, Mr Hay, we'll up
anchor, if you please.'

'For Heaven's sake, tell me some of the words,' whispered Herrick.

An hour later, the Farallone was under all plain sail, the rudder hard
a-port, and the cheerfully clanking windlass had brought the anchor
home.

'All clear, sir,' cried Herrick from the bow.

The captain met her with the wheel, as she bounded like a stag from
her repose, trembling and bending to the puffs. The guard boat gave a
parting hail, the wake whitened and ran out; the Farallone was under
weigh.

Her berth had been close to the pass. Even as she forged ahead Davis
slewed her for the channel between the pier ends of the reef, the
breakers sounding and whitening to either hand. Straight through the
narrow band of blue, she shot to seaward: and the captain's heart
exulted as he felt her tremble underfoot, and (looking back over the
taffrail) beheld the roofs of Papeete changing position on the shore and
the island mountains rearing higher in the wake.

But they were not yet done with the shore and the horror of the yellow
flag. About midway of the pass, there was a cry and a scurry, a man was
seen to leap upon the rail, and, throwing his arms over his head, to
stoop and plunge into the sea.

'Steady as she goes,' the captain cried, relinquishing the wheel to
Huish.

The next moment he was forward in the midst of the Kanakas, belaying pin
in hand.

'Anybody else for shore?' he cried, and the savage trumpeting of his
voice, no less than the ready weapon in his hand, struck fear in all.
Stupidly they stared after their escaped companion, whose black head
was visible upon the water, steering for the land. And the schooner
meanwhile slipt like a racer through the pass, and met the long sea of
the open ocean with a souse of spray.

'Fool that I was, not to have a pistol ready!' exclaimed Davis. 'Well,
we go to sea short-handed, we can't help that. You have a lame watch of
it, Mr Hay.'

'I don't see how we are to get along,' said Herrick.

'Got to,' said the captain. 'No more Tahiti for me.'

Both turned instinctively and looked astern. The fair island was
unfolding mountain top on mountain top; Eimeo, on the port board, lifted
her splintered pinnacles; and still the schooner raced to the open sea.

'Think!' cried the captain with a gesture, 'yesterday morning I danced
for my breakfast like a poodle dog.'



Chapter 5. THE CARGO OF CHAMPAGNE

The ship's head was laid to clear Eimeo to the north, and the captain
sat down in the cabin, with a chart, a ruler, and an epitome.

'East a half no'the,' said he, raising his face from his labours. 'Mr
Hay, you'll have to watch your dead reckoning; I want every yard she
makes on every hair's-breadth of a course. I'm going to knock a hole
right straight through the Paumotus, and that's always a near touch.
Now, if this South East Trade ever blew out of the S.E., which it don't,
we might hope to lie within half a point of our course. Say we lie
within a point of it. That'll just about weather Fakarava. Yes, sir,
that's what we've got to do, if we tack for it. Brings us through this
slush of little islands in the cleanest place: see?' And he showed
where his ruler intersected the wide-lying labyrinth of the Dangerous
Archipelago. 'I wish it was night, and I could put her about right now;
we're losing time and easting. Well, we'll do our best. And if we don't
fetch Peru, we'll bring up to Ecuador. All one, I guess. Depreciated
dollars down, and no questions asked. A remarkable fine institootion,
the South American don.'

Tahiti was already some way astern, the Diadem rising from among broken
mountains--Eimeo was already close aboard, and stood black and strange
against the golden splendour of the west--when the captain took his
departure from the two islands, and the patent log was set.

Some twenty minutes later, Sally Day, who was continually leaving
the wheel to peer in at the cabin clock, announced in a shrill cry
'Fo'bell,' and the cook was to be seen carrying the soup into the cabin.

'I guess I'll sit down and have a pick with you,' said Davis to Herrick.
'By the time I've done, it'll be dark, and we'll clap the hooker on the
wind for South America.'

In the cabin at one corner of the table, immediately below the lamp, and
on the lee side of a bottle of champagne, sat Huish. 'What's this? Where
did that come from?' asked the captain.

'It's fizz, and it came from the after-'old, if you want to know,' said
Huish, and drained his mug.

'This'll never do,' exclaimed Davis, the merchant seaman's horror of
breaking into cargo showing incongruously forth on board that stolen
ship. 'There was never any good came of games like that.'

'You byby!' said Huish. 'A fellow would think (to 'ear him) we were
on the square! And look 'ere, you've put this job up 'ansomely for me,
'aven't you? I'm to go on deck and steer while you two sit and guzzle,
and I'm to go by nickname, and got to call you "sir" and "mister." Well,
you look here, my bloke: I'll have fizz ad lib., or it won't wash. I
tell you that. And you know mighty well, you ain't got any man-of-war to
signal now.'

Davis was staggered. 'I'd give fifty dollars this had never happened,'
he said weakly.

'Well, it 'as 'appened, you see,' returned Huish. 'Try some; it's
devilish good.'

The Rubicon was crossed without another struggle. The captain filled a
mug and drank.

'I wish it was beer,' he said with a sigh. 'But there's no denying it's
the genuine stuff and cheap at the money. Now, Huish, you clear out and
take your wheel.'

The little wretch had gained a point, and he was gay. 'Ay, ay, sir,'
said he, and left the others to their meal.

'Pea soup!' exclaimed the captain. 'Blamed if I thought I should taste
pea soup again!'

Herrick sat inert and silent. It was impossible after these months of
hopeless want to smell the rough, high-spiced sea victuals without
lust, and his mouth watered with desire of the champagne. It was no less
impossible to have assisted at the scene between Huish and the captain,
and not to perceive, with sudden bluntness, the gulf where he had
fallen. He was a thief among thieves. He said it to himself. He could
not touch the soup. If he had moved at all, it must have been to leave
the table, throw himself overboard, and drown--an honest man.

'Here,' said the captain, 'you look sick, old man; have a drop of this.'

The champagne creamed and bubbled in the mug; its bright colour, its
lively effervescence, seized his eye. 'It is too late to hesitate,'
he thought; his hand took the mug instinctively; he drank, with
unquenchable pleasure and desire of more; drained the vessel dry, and
set it down with sparkling eyes.

'There is something in life after all!' he cried. 'I had forgot what it
was like. Yes, even this is worth while. Wine, food, dry clothes--why,
they're worth dying, worth hanging, for! Captain, tell me one thing: why
aren't all the poor folk foot-pads?'

'Give it up,' said the captain.

'They must be damned good,' cried Herrick. 'There's something here
beyond me. Think of that calaboose! Suppose we were sent suddenly back.'
He shuddered as though stung by a convulsion, and buried his face in his
clutching hands.

'Here, what's wrong with you?' cried the captain. There was no reply;
only Herrick's shoulders heaved, so that the table was shaken. 'Take
some more of this. Here, drink this. I order you to. Don't start crying
when you're out of the wood.'

'I'm not crying,' said Herrick, raising his face and showing his dry
eyes. 'It's worse than crying. It's the horror of that grave that we've
escaped from.'

'Come now, you tackle your soup; that'll fix you,' said Davis kindly.
'I told you you were all broken up. You couldn't have stood out another
week.'

'That's the dreadful part of it!' cried Herrick. 'Another week and I'd
have murdered someone for a dollar! God! and I know that? And I'm still
living? It's some beastly dream.'

'Quietly, quietly! Quietly does it, my son. Take your pea soup. Food,
that's what you want,' said Davis.

The soup strengthened and quieted Herrick's nerves; another glass of
wine, and a piece of pickled pork and fried banana completed what the
soup began; and he was able once more to look the captain in the face.

'I didn't know I was so much run down,' he said.

'Well,' said Davis, 'you were as steady as a rock all day: now you've
had a little lunch, you'll be as steady as a rock again.'

'Yes,'was the reply, 'I'm steady enough now, but I'm a queer kind of a
first officer.'

'Shucks!' cried the captain. 'You've only got to mind the ship's course,
and keep your slate to half a point. A babby could do that, let alone
a college graduate like you. There ain't nothing TO sailoring, when you
come to look it in the face. And now we'll go and put her about. Bring
the slate; we'll have to start our dead reckoning right away.'

The distance run since the departure was read off the log by the
binnacle light and entered on the slate.

'Ready about,' said the captain. 'Give me the wheel, White Man, and you
stand by the mainsheet. Boom tackle, Mr Hay, please, and then you can
jump forward and attend head sails.'

'Ay, ay, sir,' responded Herrick.

'All clear forward?' asked Davis.

'All clear, sir.'

'Hard a-lee!' cried the captain. 'Haul in your slack as she comes,' he
called to Huish. 'Haul in your slack, put your back into it; keep your
feet out of the coils.' A sudden blow sent Huish flat along the deck,
and the captain was in his place. 'Pick yourself up and keep the wheel
hard over!' he roared. 'You wooden fool, you wanted to get killed, I
guess. Draw the jib,' he cried a moment later; and then to Huish, 'Give
me the wheel again, and see if you can coil that sheet.'

But Huish stood and looked at Davis with an evil countenance. 'Do you
know you struck me?' said he.

'Do you know I saved your life?' returned the other, not deigning to
look at him, his eyes travelling instead between the compass and the
sails. 'Where would you have been, if that boom had swung out and
you bundled in the clack? No, SIR, we'll have no more of you at the
mainsheet. Seaport towns are full of mainsheet-men; they hop upon one
leg, my son, what's left of them, and the rest are dead. (Set your boom
tackle, Mr Hay.) Struck you, did I? Lucky for you I did.'

'Well,' said Huish slowly, 'I daresay there may be somethink in that.
'Ope there is.' He turned his back elaborately on the captain, and
entered the house, where the speedy explosion of a champagne cork showed
he was attending to his comfort.

Herrick came aft to the captain. 'How is she doing now?' he asked.

'East and by no'the a half no'the,' said Davis. 'It's about as good as I
expected.'

'What'll the hands think of it?' said Herrick.

'Oh, they don't think. They ain't paid to,' says the captain.

'There was something wrong, was there not? between you and--' Herrick
paused.

'That's a nasty little beast, that's a biter,' replied the captain,
shaking his head. 'But so long as you and me hang in, it don't matter.'

Herrick lay down in the weather alleyway; the night was cloudless, the
movement of the ship cradled him, he was oppressed besides by the first
generous meal after so long a time of famine; and he was recalled from
deep sleep by the voice of Davis singing out: 'Eight bells!'

He rose stupidly, and staggered aft, where the captain gave him the
wheel.

'By the wind,' said the captain. 'It comes a little puffy; when you get
a heavy puff, steal all you can to windward, but keep her a good full.'

He stepped towards the house, paused and hailed the forecastle.

'Got such a thing as a concertina forward?' said he. 'Bully for you,
Uncle Ned. Fetch it aft, will you?'

The schooner steered very easy; and Herrick, watching the moon-whitened
sails, was overpowered by drowsiness. A sharp report from the cabin
startled him; a third bottle had been opened; and Herrick remembered
the Sea Ranger and Fourteen Island Group. Presently the notes of the
accordion sounded, and then the captain's voice:

  'O honey, with our pockets full of money,

  We will trip, trip, trip, we will trip it on the quay,

  And I will dance with Kate, and Tom will dance with Sall,

  When we're all back from South Amerikee.'

So it went to its quaint air; and the watch below lingered and listened
by the forward door, and Uncle Ned was to be seen in the moonlight
nodding time; and Herrick smiled at the wheel, his anxieties a while
forgotten. Song followed song; another cork exploded; there were voices
raised, as though the pair in the cabin were in disagreement; and
presently it seemed the breach was healed; for it was now the voice of
Huish that struck up, to the captain's accompaniment--


     'Up in a balloon, boys,

      Up in a balloon,

     All among the little stars

      And round about the moon.'


A wave of nausea overcame Herrick at the wheel. He wondered why the air,
the words (which were yet written with a certain knack), and the voice
and accent of the singer, should all jar his spirit like a file on a
man's teeth. He sickened at the thought of his two comrades drinking
away their reason upon stolen wine, quarrelling and hiccupping and
waking up, while the doors of the prison yawned for them in the near
future. 'Shall I have sold my honour for nothing?' he thought; and
a heat of rage and resolution glowed in his bosom--rage against his
comrades--resolution to carry through this business if it might be
carried; pluck profit out of shame, since the shame at least was now
inevitable; and come home, home from South America--how did the song
go?--'with his pockets full of money':


'O honey, with our pockets full of money,

We will trip, trip, trip, we will trip it on the quay:'

so the words ran in his head; and the honey took on visible form, the
quay rose before him and he knew it for the lamplit Embankment, and
he saw the lights of Battersea bridge bestride the sullen river. All
through the remainder of his trick, he stood entranced, reviewing the
past. He had been always true to his love, but not always sedulous
to recall her. In the growing calamity of his life, she had swum
more distant, like the moon in mist. The letter of farewell, the
dishonourable hope that had surprised and corrupted him in his distress,
the changed scene, the sea, the night and the music--all stirred him
to the roots of manhood. 'I WILL win her,' he thought, and ground his
teeth. 'Fair or foul, what matters if I win her?'

'Fo' bell, matey. I think um fo' bell'--he was suddenly recalled by
these words in the voice of Uncle Ned.

'Look in at the clock, Uncle,' said he. He would not look himself, from
horror of the tipplers.

'Him past, matey,' repeated the Hawaiian.

'So much the better for you, Uncle,' he replied; and he gave up the
wheel, repeating the directions as he had received them.

He took two steps forward and remembered his dead reckoning. 'How has
she been heading?' he thought; and he flushed from head to foot. He had
not observed or had forgotten; here was the old incompetence; the slate
must be filled up by guess. 'Never again!' he vowed to himself in silent
fury, 'never again. It shall be no fault of mine if this miscarry.' And
for the remainder of his watch, he stood close by Uncle Ned, and read
the face of the compass as perhaps he had never read a letter from his
sweetheart.

All the time, and spurring him to the more attention, song, loud talk,
fleering laughter and the occasional popping of a cork, reached his ears
from the interior of the house; and when the port watch was relieved
at midnight, Huish and the captain appeared upon the quarter-deck with
flushed faces and uneven steps, the former laden with bottles, the
latter with two tin mugs. Herrick silently passed them by. They hailed
him in thick voices, he made no answer, they cursed him for a churl,
he paid no heed although his belly quivered with disgust and rage. He
closed-to the door of the house behind him, and cast himself on a locker
in the cabin--not to sleep he thought--rather to think and to despair.
Yet he had scarce turned twice on his uneasy bed, before a drunken voice
hailed him in the ear, and he must go on deck again to stand the morning
watch.

The first evening set the model for those that were to follow. Two cases
of champagne scarce lasted the four-and-twenty hours, and almost the
whole was drunk by Huish and the captain. Huish seemed to thrive on the
excess; he was never sober, yet never wholly tipsy; the food and the sea
air had soon healed him of his disease, and he began to lay on flesh.
But with Davis things went worse. In the drooping, unbuttoned figure
that sprawled all day upon the lockers, tippling and reading novels;
in the fool who made of the evening watch a public carouse on the
quarter-deck, it would have been hard to recognise the vigorous seaman
of Papeete roads. He kept himself reasonably well in hand till he had
taken the sun and yawned and blotted through his calculations; but from
the moment he rolled up the chart, his hours were passed in slavish
self-indulgence or in hoggish slumber. Every other branch of his duty
was neglected, except maintaining a stern discipline about the dinner
table. Again and again Herrick would hear the cook called aft, and see
him running with fresh tins, or carrying away again a meal that had been
totally condemned. And the more the captain became sunk in drunkenness,
the more delicate his palate showed itself. Once, in the forenoon, he
had a bo'sun's chair rigged over the rail, stripped to his trousers,
and went overboard with a pot of paint. 'I don't like the way this
schooner's painted,' said he, 'and I've taken a down upon her name.' But
he tired of it in half an hour, and the schooner went on her way with
an incongruous patch of colour on the stern, and the word Farallone part
obliterated and part looking through. He refused to stand either the
middle or the morning watch. It was fine-weather sailing, he said;
and asked, with a laugh, 'Who ever heard of the old man standing watch
himself?' To the dead reckoning which Herrick still tried to keep, he
would pay not the least attention nor afford the least assistance.

'What do we want of dead reckoning?' he asked. 'We get the sun all
right, don't we?'

'We mayn't get it always though,' objected Herrick. 'And you told me
yourself you weren't sure of the chronometer.'

'Oh, there ain't no flies in the chronometer!' cried Davis.

'Oblige me so far, captain,' said Herrick stiffly. 'I am anxious to keep
this reckoning, which is a part of my duty; I do not know what to allow
for current, nor how to allow for it. I am too inexperienced; and I beg
of you to help me.'

'Never discourage zealous officer,' said the captain, unrolling the
chart again, for Herrick had taken him over his day's work and while he
was still partly sober. 'Here it is: look for yourself; anything from
west to west no'the-west, and anyways from five to twenty-five miles.
That's what the A'm'ralty chart says; I guess you don't expect to get on
ahead of your own Britishers?'

'I am trying to do my duty, Captain Brown,' said Herrick, with a dark
flush, 'and I have the honour to inform you that I don't enjoy being
trifled with.'

'What in thunder do you want?' roared Davis. 'Go and look at the blamed
wake. If you're trying to do your duty, why don't you go and do it? I
guess it's no business of mine to go and stick my head over the ship's
rump? I guess it's yours. And I'll tell you what it is, my fine fellow,
I'll trouble you not to come the dude over me. You're insolent, that's
what's wrong with you. Don't you crowd me, Mr Herrick, Esquire.'

Herrick tore up his papers, threw them on the floor, and left the cabin.

'He's turned a bloomin' swot, ain't he?' sneered Huish.

'He thinks himself too good for his company, that's what ails Herrick,
Esquire,' raged the captain. 'He thinks I don't understand when he comes
the heavy swell. Won't sit down with us, won't he? won't say a civil
word? I'll serve the son of a gun as he deserves. By God, Huish, I'll
show him whether he's too good for John Davis!'

'Easy with the names, cap',' said Huish, who was always the more sober.
'Easy over the stones, my boy!'

'All right, I will. You're a good sort, Huish. I didn't take to you at
first, but I guess you're right enough. Let's open another bottle,'
said the captain; and that day, perhaps because he was excited by the
quarrel, he drank more recklessly, and by four o'clock was stretched
insensible upon the locker.

Herrick and Huish supped alone, one after the other, opposite his
flushed and snorting body. And if the sight killed Herrick's hunger, the
isolation weighed so heavily on the clerk's spirit, that he was scarce
risen from table ere he was currying favour with his former comrade.

Herrick was at the wheel when he approached, and Huish leaned
confidentially across the binnacle.

'I say, old chappie,' he said, 'you and me don't seem to be such pals
somehow.'

Herrick gave her a spoke or two in silence; his eye, as it skirted
from the needle to the luff of the foresail, passed the man by without
speculation. But Huish was really dull, a thing he could support with
difficulty, having no resources of his own. The idea of a private talk
with Herrick, at this stage of their relations, held out particular
inducements to a person of his character. Drink besides, as it renders
some men hyper-sensitive, made Huish callous. And it would almost have
required a blow to make him quit his purpose.

'Pretty business, ain't it?' he continued; 'Dyvis on the lush? Must say
I thought you gave it 'im A1 today. He didn't like it a bit; took on
hawful after you were gone.--"'Ere," says I, "'old on, easy on the
lush," I says. "'Errick was right, and you know it. Give 'im a chanst,"
I says.--"Uish," sezee, "don't you gimme no more of your jaw, or I'll
knock your bloomin' eyes out." Well, wot can I do, 'Errick? But I tell
you, I don't 'arf like it. It looks to me like the Sea Rynger over
again.'

Still Herrick was silent.

'Do you hear me speak?' asked Huish sharply. 'You're pleasant, ain't
you?'

'Stand away from that binnacle,' said Herrick.

The clerk looked at him, long and straight and black; his figure seemed
to writhe like that of a snake about to strike; then he turned on his
heel, went back to the cabin and opened a bottle of champagne. When
eight bells were cried, he slept on the floor beside the captain on the
locker; and of the whole starboard watch, only Sally Day appeared upon
the summons. The mate proposed to stand the watch with him, and let
Uncle Ned lie down; it would make twelve hours on deck, and probably
sixteen, but in this fair-weather sailing, he might safely sleep between
his tricks of wheel, leaving orders to be called on any sign of squalls.
So far he could trust the men, between whom and himself a close relation
had sprung up. With Uncle Ned he held long nocturnal conversations, and
the old man told him his simple and hard story of exile, suffering, and
injustice among cruel whites. The cook, when he found Herrick messed
alone, produced for him unexpected and sometimes unpalatable dainties,
of which he forced himself to eat. And one day, when he was forward,
he was surprised to feel a caressing hand run down his shoulder, and to
hear the voice of Sally Day crooning in his ear: 'You gootch man!' He
turned, and, choking down a sob, shook hands with the negrito. They were
kindly, cheery, childish souls. Upon the Sunday each brought forth
his separate Bible--for they were all men of alien speech even to each
other, and Sally Day communicated with his mates in English only, each
read or made believe to read his chapter, Uncle Ned with spectacles on
his nose; and they would all join together in the singing of missionary
hymns. It was thus a cutting reproof to compare the islanders and the
whites aboard the Farallone. Shame ran in Herrick's blood to remember
what employment he was on, and to see these poor souls--and even Sally
Day, the child of cannibals, in all likelihood a cannibal himself--so
faithful to what they knew of good. The fact that he was held in
grateful favour by these innocents served like blinders to his
conscience, and there were times when he was inclined, with Sally Day,
to call himself a good man. But the height of his favour was only now to
appear. With one voice, the crew protested; ere Herrick knew what they
were doing, the cook was aroused and came a willing volunteer; all hands
clustered about their mate with expostulations and caresses; and he was
bidden to lie down and take his customary rest without alarm.

'He tell you tlue,' said Uncle Ned. 'You sleep. Evely man hae he do all
light. Evely man he like you too much.'

Herrick struggled, and gave way; choked upon some trivial words of
gratitude; and walked to the side of the house, against which he leaned,
struggling with emotion.

Uncle Ned presently followed him and begged him to lie down.

'It's no use, Uncle Ned,' he replied. 'I couldn't sleep. I'm knocked
over with all your goodness.'

'Ah, no call me Uncle Ned no mo'!' cried the old man. 'No my name! My
name Taveeta, all-e-same Taveeta King of Islael. Wat for he call that
Hawaii? I think no savvy nothing--all-e-same Wise-a-mana.'

It was the first time the name of the late captain had been mentioned,
and Herrick grasped the occasion. The reader shall be spared Uncle Ned's
unwieldy dialect, and learn in less embarrassing English, the sum of
what he now communicated. The ship had scarce cleared the Golden Gates
before the captain and mate had entered on a career of drunkenness,
which was scarcely interrupted by their malady and only closed by death.
For days and weeks they had encountered neither land nor ship; and
seeing themselves lost on the huge deep with their insane conductors,
the natives had drunk deep of terror.

At length they made a low island, and went in; and Wiseman and Wishart
landed in the boat.

There was a great village, a very fine village, and plenty Kanakas in
that place; but all mighty serious; and from every here and there in
the back parts of the settlement, Taveeta heard the sounds of island
lamentation. 'I no savvy TALK that island,' said he. 'I savvy hear
um CLY. I think, Hum! too many people die here!' But upon Wiseman and
Wishart the significance of that barbaric keening was lost. Full of
bread and drink, they rollicked along unconcerned, embraced the girls
who had scarce energy to repel them, took up and joined (with drunken
voices) in the death wail, and at last (on what they took to be
an invitation) entered under the roof of a house in which was a
considerable concourse of people sitting silent. They stooped below the
eaves, flushed and laughing; within a minute they came forth again with
changed faces and silent tongues; and as the press severed to make way
for them, Taveeta was able to perceive, in the deep shadow of the house,
the sick man raising from his mat a head already defeatured by disease.
The two tragic triflers fled without hesitation for their boat,
screaming on Taveeta to make haste; they came aboard with all speed
of oars, raised anchor and crowded sail upon the ship with blows and
curses, and were at sea again--and again drunk--before sunset. A week
after, and the last of the two had been committed to the deep. Herrick
asked Taveeta where that island was, and he replied that, by what he
gathered of folks' talk as they went up together from the beach, he
supposed it must be one of the Paumotus. This was in itself probable
enough, for the Dangerous Archipelago had been swept that year from east
to west by devastating smallpox; but Herrick thought it a strange course
to lie from Sydney. Then he remembered the drink.

'Were they not surprised when they made the island?' he asked.

'Wise-a-mana he say "dam! what this?"' was the reply.

'O, that's it then,' said Herrick. 'I don't believe they knew where they
were.'

'I think so too,' said Uncle Ned. 'I think no savvy. This one mo'
betta,' he added, pointing to the house where the drunken captain
slumbered: 'Take-a-sun all-e-time.'

The implied last touch completed Herrick's picture of the life and death
of his two predecessors; of their prolonged, sordid, sodden sensuality
as they sailed, they knew not whither, on their last cruise. He held but
a twinkling and unsure belief in any future state; the thought of one
of punishment he derided; yet for him (as for all) there dwelt a horror
about the end of the brutish man. Sickness fell upon him at the image
thus called up; and when he compared it with the scene in which himself
was acting, and considered the doom that seemed to brood upon the
schooner, a horror that was almost superstitious fell upon him. And
yet the strange thing was, he did not falter. He who had proved his
incapacity in so many fields, being now falsely placed amid duties
which he did not understand, without help, and it might be said without
countenance, had hitherto surpassed expectation; and even the shameful
misconduct and shocking disclosures of that night seemed but to nerve
and strengthen him. He had sold his honour; he vowed it should not be in
vain; 'it shall be no fault of mine if this miscarry,' he repeated. And
in his heart he wondered at himself. Living rage no doubt supported him;
no doubt also, the sense of the last cast, of the ships burned, of all
doors closed but one, which is so strong a tonic to the merely weak, and
so deadly a depressant to the merely cowardly.

For some time the voyage went otherwise well. They weathered Fakarava
with one board; and the wind holding well to the southward and
blowing fresh, they passed between Ranaka and Ratiu, and ran some days
north-east by east-half-east under the lee of Takume and Honden, neither
of which they made. In about 14 degrees South and between 134 and 135
degrees West, it fell a dead calm with rather a heavy sea. The captain
refused to take in sail, the helm was lashed, no watch was set, and the
Farallone rolled and banged for three days, according to observation, in
almost the same place. The fourth morning, a little before day, a breeze
sprang up and rapidly freshened. The captain had drunk hard the night
before; he was far from sober when he was roused; and when he came on
deck for the first time at half-past eight, it was plain he had already
drunk deep again at breakfast. Herrick avoided his eye; and resigned the
deck with indignation to a man more than half-seas over.

By the loud commands of the captain and the singing out of fellows at
the ropes, he could judge from the house that sail was being crowded on
the ship; relinquished his half-eaten breakfast; and came on deck again,
to find the main and the jib topsails set, and both watches and the cook
turned out to hand the staysail. The Farallone lay already far over;
the sky was obscured with misty scud; and from the windward an ominous
squall came flying up, broadening and blackening as it rose.

Fear thrilled in Herrick's vitals. He saw death hard by; and if not
death, sure ruin. For if the Farallone lived through the coming squall,
she must surely be dismasted. With that their enterprise was at an end,
and they themselves bound prisoners to the very evidence of their crime.
The greatness of the peril and his own alarm sufficed to silence him.
Pride, wrath, and shame raged without issue in his mind; and he shut his
teeth and folded his arms close.

The captain sat in the boat to windward, bellowing orders and insults,
his eyes glazed, his face deeply congested; a bottle set between his
knees, a glass in his hand half empty. His back was to the squall, and
he was at first intent upon the setting of the sail. When that was done,
and the great trapezium of canvas had begun to draw and to trail the
lee-rail of the Farallone level with the foam, he laughed out an empty
laugh, drained his glass, sprawled back among the lumber in the boat,
and fetched out a crumpled novel.

Herrick watched him, and his indignation glowed red hot. He glanced to
windward where the squall already whitened the near sea and heralded its
coming with a singular and dismal sound. He glanced at the steersman,
and saw him clinging to the spokes with a face of a sickly blue. He saw
the crew were running to their stations without orders. And it seemed
as if something broke in his brain; and the passion of anger, so long
restrained, so long eaten in secret, burst suddenly loose and shook him
like a sail. He stepped across to the captain and smote his hand heavily
on the drunkard's shoulder.