"Pea-soup!" exclaimed the captain. "Blamed if I thought I should taste
pea-soup again!"

Herrick sat inert and silent. It was impossible after these months of
hopeless want to smell the rough, high-spiced sea victuals without lust,
and his mouth watered with desire of the champagne. It was no less
impossible to have assisted at the scene between Huish and the captain,
and not to perceive, with sudden bluntness, the gulf where he had
fallen. He was a thief among thieves. He said it to himself. He could
not touch the soup. If he had moved at all, it must have been to leave
the table, throw himself overboard, and drown--an honest man.

"Here," said the captain, "you look sick, old man; have a drop of this."

The champagne creamed and bubbled in the mug; its bright colour, its
lively effervescence, seized his eye. "It is too late to hesitate," he
thought; his hand took the mug instinctively; he drank, with
unquenchable pleasure and desire of more; drained the vessel dry, and
set it down with sparkling eyes.

"There is something in life after all!" he cried. "I had forgot what it
was like. Yes, even this is worth while. Wine, food, dry clothes--why,
they're worth dying, worth hanging for! Captain, tell me one thing: why
aren't all the poor folk foot-pads?"

"Give it up," said the captain.

"They must be damned good," cried Herrick. "There's something here
beyond me. Think of that calaboose! Suppose we were sent suddenly back."
He shuddered as stung by a convulsion, and buried his face in his
clutching hands.

"Here, what's wrong with you?" cried the captain. There was no reply;
only Herrick's shoulders heaved, so that the table was shaken. "Take
some more of this. Here, drink this. I order you to. Don't start crying
when you're out of the wood."

"I'm not crying," said Herrick, raising his face and showing his dry
eyes. "It's worse than crying. It's the horror of that grave that we've
escaped from."

"Come now, you tackle your soup; that'll fix you," said Davis kindly. "I
told you you were all broken up. You couldn't have stood out another
week."

"That's the dreadful part of it!" cried Herrick. "Another week and I'd
have murdered some one for a dollar! God! and I know that? And I'm still
living? It's some beastly dream."

"Quietly, quietly! Quietly does it, my son. Take your pea-soup. Food,
that's what you want," said Davis.

The soup strengthened and quieted Herrick's nerves; another glass of
wine, and