ee no more of you,' said Herrick.

The captain groaned aloud. 'You know what you said about my children?'
he broke out.

'By rote. In case you wish me to say it you again?' asked Herrick.

'Don't!' cried the captain, clapping his hands to his ears. 'Don't make
me kill a man I care for! Herrick, if you see me put glass to my lips
again till we're ashore, I give you leave to put bullet through me;
I beg you to do it! You're the only man aboard whose carcase is worth
losing; do you think I don't know that? do you think I ever went back on
you? I always knew you were in the right of it--drunk or sober, I knew
that. What do you want?--an oath? Man, you're clever enough to see that
this is sure-enough earnest.'

'Do you mean there shall be no more drinking?' asked Herrick, 'neither
by you nor Huish? that you won't go on stealing my profits and drinking
my champagne that I gave my honour for? and that you'll attend to your
duties, and stand watch and watch, and bear your proper share of the
ship's work, instead of leaving it all on the shoulders of a landsman,
and making yourself the butt and scoff of native seamen? Is that what
you mean? If it is, be so good as to say it categorically.'

'You put these things in a way hard for a gentleman to swallow,' said
the captain. 'You wouldn't have me say I was ashamed of myself? Trust me
this once; I'll do the square thing, and there's my hand on it.'

'Well, I'll try it once,' said Herrick. 'Fail me again...'

'No more now!' interrupted Davis. 'No more, old man! Enough said. You've
a riling tongue when your back's up, Herrick. Just be glad we're friends
again, the same as what I am; and go tender on the raws; I'll see as you
don't repent it. We've been mighty near death this day--don't say whose
fault it was!--pretty near hell, too, I guess. We're in a mighty bad
line of life, us two, and ought to go easy with each other.'

He was maundering; yet it seemed as if he were maundering with some
design, beating about the bush of some communication that he feared to
make, or perhaps only talking against time in terror of what Herrick
might say next. But Herrick had now spat his venom; his was a kindly
nature, and, content with his triumph, he had now begun to pity. With
a few soothing words, he sought to conclude the interview, and proposed
that they should change their clothes.

'Not right yet,' said Davis. 'There's another thing I want to tell you
first. You know what you said ab