ou had to do 'em, Aaron! And yet when you stop and think
that they've got immortal souls to save--"

"They don't carry any such duffle to sea in their dunnage-bags,"
snapped the skipper. "Moral suasion on them would be about like
tryin' to whittle through a turkle's shell with a hummin'-bird's
pin-feather. My rule most generally was to find one soft spot on 'em
somewhere that a marlin-spike would hurt, and then hit that spot hard
and often. That's the only way I ever got somewhere with a cargo and
got back ag'in the same year."

"I suppose it has to be," sighed his wife, making a note. "It's like
killing little calves for veal, and all such things that make the
fond heart ache."

The Cap'n was "leaving" the grimy pages of a log-book. He paused over
certain entries, and his face darkened. There was no more
vindictiveness in his expression. It was regret and a sort of vague
worry.

"What is it, Aaron?" asked his wife, with wistful apprehensiveness.

"Northin'," he growled.

"But I know it's something," she insisted, "and I'm always ready to
share your burdens."

Cap'n Sproul looked around on the peace of his home, and some deep
feeling seemed to surge in his soul.

"Louada Murilla," he said, sadly, "this isn't anything to be written
in the book, and I didn't ever mean to speak of it to you. But there
are times when a man jest has to talk about things, and he can't help
it. There was one thing that I've been sorry for. I've said so to
myself, and I'm goin' to say as much to you. Confession is good for
the soul, so they say, and it may help me out some to tell you."

The horrified look on her face pricked him to speak further. 'Tis
a titillating sensation, sometimes, to awe or shock those whom we
love, when we know that forgiveness waits ready at hand.

"There was once--there was one man--I hit him dretful hard. He was
a Portygee. But I hit him too hard. It was a case of mutiny. I reckon
I could have proved it was mutiny, with the witnesses. But I hit him
hard."

"Did he--?" gasped his wife.

"He did," replied the Cap'n, shortly, and was silent for a time.

"The thing for me to have done," he went on, despondently, "was to
report it, and stood hearin'. But it was six weeks after we'd dropped
him overboard--after the funeral, ye know--before we reached port.
And there was a cargo ashore jest dancin' up and down to slip through
the main hatch as soon as t' other one was over the rail--and freights
'way up an