r, or else her great trouble caused
her to forget my presence, for she suddenly buried her face in her
hands, and her shoulders commenced to heave. It stabbed me to the
quick, the sight of that noiseless grief. My eyelids smarted, and my
throat bulged uncomfortably. What was her trouble? Swope? Had he
hurt her? Was the talk I had heard at the Swede's correct, did that
black devil beat the lady? My hands grasped the wheel spokes fiercely,
as though I had Swope's sleek throat between my fingers.

I heard Mister Lynch coming aft. I thought the lady would not wish him
to see her weeping, and since she did not seem to hear the approach, I
called softly to her, "Lady! They come!"

She straightened, and, after a second, came swiftly to me. She bent
her face within the narrow radius of the binnacle lights, and her eyes
looked straight into mine. Aye, and the misery and suffering I saw in
those great eyes!

"God bless you, boy," she whispered. "You are his friend? Tell him I
come forward in the morning. Tell him--for my sake--as he loves his
life--to look behind him when he walks in the dark!"

With that she turned and sped to the hatch, and was gone below. And up
the poop ladder tramped Lynch, with the two tradesmen following him.

I have mentioned these two familiars of the second mate before, and I
had better explain them.

The _Golden Bough_ carried neither junior officers, nor bo'suns, an
unusual circumstance, considering the size and character of her crews.
Instead, she carried two sailmakers and two carpenters, and these
tradesmen lived by themselves in the round-house, ate aft at a special
table, and, save when emergency work prevented, stood watch and watch.
They stood their night watches aft, with the officer on deck. This
arrangement--unique in all my sea experience--provided three men,
awake, armed and handy, throughout the night. It worried us a good
deal, this arrangement, when, in due time, we began to talk of mutiny.

But I was not talking, or even thinking, of mutiny this night, or for
many nights. Nothing was further from my thoughts. Mutiny is a
serious business, a hanging business, the business of scoundrels, or
the last resort of desperate men. I knew the consequences of mutiny,
so did the others, squareheads and stiffs, and we had not been
sufficiently maltreated to make us ripe for such an undertaking.

But there was mutiny in the air on the _Golden Bough_ from that very
first