akes his chance to leave
her an' look for a white man's job?"

"Yes, he is," answered Noble. "You're a sailor, ain't you? Then stick
by your ship."

"Oh, it ain't no use talkin' to you!" Goodwin rose to his feet. "You'd
make out that a man 'u'd go to heaven for stickin' to his ship, even
if he done forty murders. I'm goin' to quit, an' that's all there is
to it."

Old Noble looked up at him where he stood. The old face, that had
been mild and indulgent, was hardened to an angry contempt. He was
old and strong, dexterous in all seamanlike arts, a being shaped for
good and evil both by half a century of seafaring, of wrong and
hardship, or danger and toil, of scant food and poor pay. Never in
his life had he held back from a task because it was dangerous or
difficult, nor sided with an officer against a man before the mast,
nor deserted a ship. His code was simple and brief, but it was of
iron.

"Well, quit, then," he said. "Quit like the Dutchmen! There's no one
will stop ye."

"They better not," menaced Goodwin angrily.

He had been shanghaied, of course, without chest or bag, without even
bedding, so that he had worked his way around the Horn in shoddy
clothes and flimsy oilskins obtained from the ship's slop-chest.
There was little that he had a mind to take ashore with him; it went
quickly into a small enough bundle. While he turned out his bunk, old
Noble sat watching him without moving, with judgment in his face, and
sorrow. He was looking on at the death of a good seaman.

"Say, Jim!" Goodwin was ready; he stood with his bundle in his hand,
his cap on his head. "You don't want to be a fool, now. I reckon we
can shake hands, anyhow."

He felt himself loath to leave the old man in anger; he had for him
both liking and respect. But Noble did not answer only continued for
some moments to look him in the face, unsoftened, stern and grieved,
then bent again above his sewing.

Goodwin withdrew the hand he had held out.

"Have it your own way," he said, and went forth from the forecastle,
leaving the old man, with the lamplight silvering his sparse hair, at
work upon the patched overalls. And, in that moment, not even the
vision of the girl and his hope of the future could save him from a
pang of sadness. It was as if he had, by his going, darkened a home.

Outside upon the deck he stayed to cast a glance about him. The big
ship, beautiful as a work of art in her lines and proportions, showed
vacant of lif