Ever since the fracas at the Bonins between Goliath and his watch,
the relations between Captain Slocum and the big negro had been
very strained. Even before the outbreak, as I have remarked upon one
occasion, it was noticeable that little love was lost between them. Why
this was so, without anything definite to guide one's reasoning, was
difficult to understand, for a better seaman or a smarter whaleman than
Mistah Jones did not live--of that every one was quite sure. Still,
there was no gainsaying the fact that, churlish and morose as our
skipper's normal temper always was, he was never so much so as in
his behaviour towards his able fourth mate, who, being a man of fine,
sensitive temper, chafed under his unmerited treatment so much as to
lose flesh, becoming daily more silent, nervous, and depressed. Still,
there had never been an open rupture, nor did it appear as if there
would be, so great was the power Captain Slocum possessed over the will
of everybody on board.

One night, however, as we were nearing the Kuriles again, on our way
south, leaving the Sea of Okhotsk, I was sitting on the fore side of the
try-works alone, meditating upon what I would do when once I got
clear of this miserable business. Futile and foolish, no doubt, my
speculations were, but only in this way could I forget for a while my
surroundings, since the inestimable comfort of reading was denied me.
I had been sitting thus absorbed in thought for nearly an hour, when
Goliath came and seated himself by my side. We had always been great
friends, although, owing to the strict discipline maintained on board,
it was not often we got a chance for a "wee bit crack," as the Scotch
say. Besides, I was not in his watch, and even now he should rightly
have been below. He sat for a minute or two silent; then, as if
compelled to speak, he began in low, fierce whispers to tell me of his
miserable state of mind. At last, after recapitulating many slights
and insults he had received silently from the captain, of which I had
previously known nothing, he became strangely calm. In tones quite
unlike his usual voice, he said that he was not an American-born negro,
but a pure African, who had been enslaved in his infancy, with his
mother, somewhere in the "Hinterland" of Guinea. While still a child,
his mother escaped with him into Liberia, a where he had remained till
her death, She was, according to him, an Obeah woman of great power,
venerated exceedingly