u
not? Angus Swope is a fiend; he is more than half-insane from long
indulgence of his cruel lusts. But he is cunning. I am a menace to
his safety, and now he knows that she is also a menace. But he will
not offer her violence or do her any harm while I am at large. By God,
it would be his death, and he knows it. I give him no chance to strike
at me alone and openly, so he is striking at me through the crew.

"For he must consider the attitude of his second mate. Lynch is her
friend, remember that, Jack. He is an honest man. He is bluff and
harsh and without imagination, as brutal a bucko as one is likely to
find In any ship, but he is 'on the square,' as you put it. Also, he
has more than an inkling of the true state of affairs in the ship. He
knows who I am, and he guesses why the captain fears and hates me. I
wish I could tell you what he has done, and is doing, in my--no, in her
behalf. And in spite of his bucko's code. He would not lift a finger
to aid me in case of trouble (you remember the warning he gave us that
day we were in the rigging) for he is an officer, a bucko, and I am a
hand. But he would not stand for another such attempt at murder as
Swope made the night we were aloft. He told Swope he would not stand
for it, he would not keep silent. It was a brave thing to do, to defy
such a master. This is Lynch's last voyage in the _Golden Bough_, as
he well knows. So our canny skipper set to work his crooked wits, and
for weeks he has been fomenting a rebellion of the port watch. Mister
Fitz is a more pliant and obedient tool than Lynch."

I was excited, wide-eyed. For I was suddenly seeing a light. The
words I heard were truth, I knew. It explained what I had seen and
heard that night upon the poop. This trouble that threatened was made
to order, to the captain's order; even as Newman said.

"Good heavens--then Nils' death--and the hazing"--I could not continue.
The heartlessness, the malignant cruelty of the man who had ordered
these things was too horrifying.

"Nils' injury was unpremeditated, I believe," said Newman, "but leaving
him die without attention or nursing was a calculated brutality,
designed to inflame the boy's mates. Fitzgibbon's bitter hazing,
without distinction or justice, was for the same purpose. They kept a
close eye upon the boy's condition; they evidently figured that the
hour of his death would be the hour of explosion. As you know, it very
nearly was--on