ne that, sir. All you'll have to do is to testify
to facts."

"I'll testify that had I been in the mate's place I'd have hanged you for
murder."

His eyes positively sparkled.

"I'll ask you to remember this conversation when you're under oath, sir,"
he cried eagerly.

I confess the man aroused in me a reluctant admiration. I looked about
his mean, iron-walled room. During the pampero the place had been awash.
The white paint was peeling off in huge scabs, and iron-rust was
everywhere. The floor was filthy. The place stank with the stench of
his sickness. His pannikin and unwashed eating-gear from the last meal
were scattered on the floor: His blankets were wet, his clothing was wet.
In a corner was a heterogeneous mass of soggy, dirty garments. He lay in
the very bunk in which he had brained O'Sullivan. He had been months in
this vile hole. In order to live he would have to remain months more in
it. And while his rat-like vitality won my admiration, I loathed and
detested him in very nausea.

"Aren't you afraid?" I demanded. "What makes you think you will last the
voyage? Don't you know bets are being made that you won't?"

So interested was he that he seemed to prick up his ears as he raised on
his elbow.

"I suppose you're too scared to tell me about them bets," he sneered.

"Oh, I've bet you'll last," I assured him.

"That means there's others that bet I won't," he rattled on hastily. "An'
that means that there's men aboard the _Elsinore_ right now financially
interested in my taking-off."

At this moment the steward, bound aft from the galley, paused in the
doorway and listened, grinning. As for Charles Davis, the man had missed
his vocation. He should have been a land-lawyer, not a sea-lawyer.

"Very well, sir," he went on. "I'll have you testify to that in Seattle,
unless you're lying to a helpless sick man, or unless you'll perjure
yourself under oath."

He got what he was seeking, for he stung me to retort:

"Oh, I'll testify. Though I tell you candidly that I don't think I'll
win my bet."

"You loose 'm bet sure," the steward broke in, nodding his head. "That
fellow him die damn soon."

"Bet with'm, sir," David challenged me. "It's a straight tip from me,
an' a regular cinch."

The whole situation was so gruesome and grotesque, and I had been swept
into it so absurdly, that for the moment I did not know what to do or
say.

"It's good money," Davis urged. "I ain't goin