se? Or heart disease complicated
with something else that obscured his mind that afternoon before his
death? Well, no one knows, and I, for one, shall not sit, even in secret
judgment, on the event.

* * * * *

At midday of the day we clawed off Tierra Del Fuego the _Elsinore_ was
rolling in a dead calm, and all afternoon she rolled, not a score of
miles off the land. Captain West was buried at four o'clock, and at
eight bells that evening Mr. Pike assumed command and made a few remarks
to both watches. They were straight-from-the-shoulder remarks, or, as he
called them, they were "brass tacks."

Among other things he told the sailors that they had another boss, and
that they would toe the mark as they never had before. Up to this time
they had been loafing in an hotel, but from this time on they were going
to work.

"On this hooker, from now on," he perorated, "it's going to be like old
times, when a man jumped the last day of the voyage as well as the first.
And God help the man that don't jump. That's all. Relieve the wheel and
lookout."

* * * * *

And yet the men are in terribly wretched condition. I don't see how they
can jump. Another week of westerly gales, alternating with brief periods
of calm, has elapsed, making a total of six weeks off the Horn. So weak
are the men that they have no spirit left in them--not even the
gangsters. And so afraid are they of the mate that they really do their
best to jump when he drives them, and he drives them all the time. Mr.
Mellaire shakes his head.

"Wait till they get around and up into better weather," he astonished me
by telling me the other afternoon. "Wait till they get dried out, and
rested up, with more sleep, and their sores healed, and more flesh on
their bones, and more spunk in their blood--then they won't stand for
this driving. Mr. Pike can't realize that times have changed, sir, and
laws have changed, and men have changed. He's an old man, and I know
what I am talking about."

"You mean you've been listening to the talk of the men?" I challenged
rashly, all my gorge rising at the unofficerlike conduct of this ship's
officer.

The shot went home, for, in a flash, that suave and gentle film of light
vanished from the surface of the eyes, and the watching, fearful thing
that lurked behind inside the skull seemed almost to leap out at me,
while the cruel gash of mouth drew thinner and crueller. And at the same
time, on my inner sight,