l us, nor a sound from any living
thing whatever. The very gulls themselves were asleep; only the fores'l,
swaying to a short sheet, would roll part way to wind'ard and back to
loo'ard, but quiet as could be even then, except for the little tapping
noises of the reef-points when in and out the belly of the canvas would
puff full up and let down again to what little wind was stirring.

It was a perfect, calm night, but no calm day was to follow. "Wicked
weather ahead," said Hugh Glynn, and came and stood beside me on the
break. "A wicked day coming, but no help for it now till daylight comes
to see our trawls to haul 'em." And, as one who had settled that in his
mind, he said no more of it, but from mainm'st to weather rail he paced,
and back again, and I took to pacing beside him.

A wonderful time, the night-watches at sea, for men to reveal
themselves. Night and sky overhead and the wide ocean to your elbow--it
drives men to thought of higher things. The wickedest of men--I have
known them, with all manner of blasphemies befouling their lips by day,
to become holy as little children in the watches of the night.

No blasphemer was Hugh Glynn, nor did the night hold terror for him;
only as we paced the break together he spoke of matters that but himself
and his God could know. It was hard to listen and be patient, though
maybe it was as much of wonder as of impatience was taking hold of me as
I listened.

"Do you never fear what men might come to think of you, Captain Glynn,"
I said, "confessing your very soul?"

"Ho, ho, that's it, is it?" He came to a sudden stop in our walking. "I
should only confess the body--is that it, Simon Kippen? And, of course,
when a man confesses to one thing of his own free will, you know there
must be something worse behind? Is that it, Simon?" He chuckled beside
me and, as if only to scandalize me, let his tongue run wilder yet.

His tales were of violations of laws such as it had been my religion to
observe since I was a boy, and little except of the comic, ridiculous
side of them all. The serious matters of life, if 'twas to judge by what
he spoke to me that night, had small interest for him. But the queer
power of the man! Had it been light where he could see me, I would have
choked before ever I would let him hear me laugh; but he caught me
smiling and straightened up, chuckling, to say: "Many other things you
would smile at, too, Simon, if your bringing up would but allow the
f