d have always admitted that my moral responsibility is but
little if any the less on that account. Yet I was never a consenting
party to wholesale murder, whatever else I was. The night before I
sailed, Santos and the captain were aboard with me till the small hours.
They promised me that every soul should have every chance; that nothing
but unforeseen accident could prevent the boats from making Ascension
again in a matter of hours; that as long as the gig was supposed to be
lost with all hands, nothing else mattered. So they promised, and that
Harris meant to keep his promise I fully believe. That was not a wanton
ruffian; but the other would spill blood like water, as I told you at
the hall, and as no man now knows better than yourself. He was notorious
even in Portuguese Africa on account of his atrocious treatment of the
blacks. It was a favorite boast of his that he once poisoned a whole
village; and that he himself tampered with the Lady Jermyn's boats you
can take my word, for I have heard him describe how he left it to the
last night, and struck the blows during the applause at the concert on
the quarter-deck. He said it might have come out about the gold in the
gig, during the fire. It was safer to run no risks.

"The same thing came into play aboard the schooner. Never shall I forget
the horror of that voyage after Santos came aboard! I had a crew of
eight hands all told, and two he brought with him in the gig. Of course
they began talking about the gold; they would have their share or split
when they got ashore; and there was mutiny in the air, with the steward
and the quarter-master of the Lady Jermyn for ring-leaders. Santos
nipped it in the bud with a vengeance! He and Harris shot every man
of them dead, and two who were shot through the heart they washed and
dressed and set adrift to rot in the gig with false papers! God knows
how we made Madeira; we painted the old name out and a new name in, on
the way; and we shipped a Portuguese crew, not a man of whom could speak
English. We shipped them aboard the Duque de Mondejo's yacht Braganza;
the schooner Spindrift had disappeared from the face of the waters for
ever. And with the men we took in plenty of sour claret and cigarettes;
and we paid them well; and the Portuguese sailor is not inquisitive
under such conditions.

"And now, honestly, I wished I had put a bullet through my head before
joining in this murderous conspiracy; but retreat was impossible, e