the time--quietly, you know. Mind you
keep your hands off them, Creighton. To-morrow I will talk to them like
a Dutch Uncle. A crazy crowd of tinkers! Yes, tinkers! I could count the
real sailors amongst them on the fingers of one hand. Nothing will do
but a row--if--you--please." He paused. "Did you think I had gone wrong
there, Mr. Baker?" He tapped his forehead, laughed short. "When I saw
him standing there, three parts dead and so scared--black amongst that
gaping lot--no grit to face what's coming to us all--the notion came to me
all at once, before I could think. Sorry for him--like you would be for a
sick brute. If ever creature was in a mortal funk to die! ... I thought
I would let him go out in his own way. Kind of impulse. It never came
into my head, those fools.... H'm! Stand to it now--of course." He
stuck the belaying-pin in his pocket, seemed ashamed of himself, then
sharply:--"If you see Podmore at his tricks again tell him I will have
him put under the pump. Had to do it once before. The fellow breaks out
like that now and then. Good cook tho'." He walked away quickly, came
back to the companion. The two mates followed him through the starlight
with amazed eyes. He went down three steps, and changing his tone, spoke
with his head near the deck:--"I shan't turn in to-night, in case of
anything; just call out if... Did you see the eyes of that sick nigger,
Mr. Baker? I fancied he begged me for something. What? Past all help.
One lone black beggar amongst the lot of us, and he seemed to look
through me into the very hell. Fancy, this wretched Podmore! Well, let
him die in peace. I am master here after all. Let him be. He might
have been half a man once... Keep a good look-out." He disappeared down
below, leaving his mates facing one another, and more impressed than if
they had seen a stone image shed a miraculous tear of compassion over
the incertitudes of life and death....

In the blue mist spreading from twisted threads that stood upright in
the bowls of pipes, the forecastle appeared as vast as a hall. Between
the beams a heavy cloud stagnated; and the lamps surrounded by halos
burned each at the core of a purple glow in two lifeless flames without
rays. Wreaths drifted in denser wisps. Men sprawled about on the deck,
sat in negligent poses, or, bending a knee, drooped with one shoulder
against a bulkhead. Lips moved, eyes flashed, waving arms made sudden
eddies in the smoke. The murmur of voices seemed