But now it was Wylie's turn. "Well," said he, very gravely, "all this was child's play."
There was a pause that marked Hudson's astonishment. Then he broke out, "Child's play, ye lubber! If you had been there your gills would have been as white as your Sunday shirt; and a d--d deal whiter."
"Come, be civil," said Wylie, "I tell you all the ways you have told me are too suspicious. Our governor is a highflyer. He pays like a prince, and, in return, he must not be blown on, if it is ever so little.
'Wylie,' says he, 'a breath of suspicion would kill me.' 'Make it so much,' says I, 'and that breath shall never blow on you. No, no, skipper; none of those ways will do for us; they have all been worked twice too often. It must be done in fair weather, and in a way-- Fill your glass and I'll fill mine-- Capital rum this. You talk of my gills turning white; before long we shall see whose keeps their color best, mine or yours, my boy."
There was a silence, during which Hudson was probably asking himself what Wylie meant; for presently he broke out in a loud but somewhat quivering voice: "Why, you mad, drunken devil of a ship's carpenter, red-hot from hell, I see what you are at, now; you are going--"
"Hush!" cried Wylie, alarmed in his turn. "Is this the sort of thing to bellow out for the watch to hear? Whisper, now."
This was followed by the earnest mutterings of two voices. In vain did the listener send his very soul into his ear to hear. He could catch no single word. Yet he could tell, by the very tones of the speakers, that the dialogue was one of mystery and importance.
Here was a situation at once irritating and alarming; but there was no help for it. The best thing, now, seemed to be to withdraw unobserved, and wait for another opportunity. He did so; and he had not long retired, when the mate came out staggering and flushed with liquor, and that was a thing that had never occurred before. He left the cabin door open and went into his own room.
Soon after sounds issued from the cabin--peculiar sounds, something between grunting and snoring.
Mr. Hazel came and entered the cabin. There he found the captain of the _Proserpine_ in a position very unfavorable to longevity. His legs were crooked over the seat of his chair, and his head was on the ground. His handkerchief was tight round his neck, and the man himself dead drunk, and purple in the face.
Mr. Hazel instantly undid his stock, on which the gallant seaman muttered inarticulately. He then took his feet off the chair and laid them on the ground, and put the empty bottle under the animal's neck.
But he had no sooner done all this than he had a serious misgiving. Would not this man's death have been a blessing? Might not his life prove fatal?
The thought infuriated him, and he gave the prostrate figure a heavy kick that almost turned it over, and the words, "Duty to employers," gurgled out of its mouth directly.
It really seemed as if these sounds were independent of the mind, and resided at the tip of Hudson's tongue, so that a thorough good kick could, at any time, shake them out of his inanimate body.
Thus do things ludicrous and things terrible mingle in the real world; only to those who are in the arena, the ludicrous passes unnoticed, being overshadowed by its terrible neighbor.
And so it was with Hazel. He saw nothing absurd in all this; and in that prostrate, insensible hog, commanding the ship, forsooth, and carrying all their lives in his hands, he saw the mysterious and alarming only; saw them so, and felt them, that he lay awake all night thinking what he should do, and early next day he went into the mate's cabin, and said to him: "Mr. Wylie, in any other ship I should speak to the captain, and not to the mate; but here that would be no use, for you are the master, and he is your servant."
"Don't tell him so, sir, for he doesn't think small beer of himself."
"I shall waste no more words on him. It is to you I speak, and you know I speak the truth. Here is a ship, in which, for certain reasons known to yourself, the captain is under the mate."
"Well, sir," said Wylie good-humoredly, "it is no use trying to deceive a gentleman like you. Our skipper is an excellent seaman, but he has got a fault." Then Wylie imitated, with his hand, the action of a person filling his glass.
"And you are here to keep him sober, eh?"
Wylie nodded.
"Then why do you ply him with liquor?"
"I don't, sir."
"You do. I have seen you do it a dozen times. And last night you took rum into his room, and made him so drunk, he would have died where he lay if I had not loosed his handkerchief."
"I am sorry to hear that, sir; but he was sober when I left him. The fool must have got to the bottle the moment I was gone."
"But that bottle you put in his way; I saw you. And what was your object?
To deaden his conscience with liquor, his and your own, while you made him your fiendish proposal. Man, man, do you believe in God, and in a judgment to come for the deeds done in the body, that you can plan in cold blood to destroy a vessel with nineteen souls on board, besides the live stock, the innocent animals that God pitied and spared when he raised his hand in wrath over Nineveh of old?"
While the clergyman was speaking, with flashing eyes and commanding voice, the seaman turned ashy pale, and drew his shoulders together like a cat preparing to defend her life.
"I plan to destroy a vessel, sir! You never heard me say such a word; and don't you hint such a thing in the ship, or you will get yourself into trouble."
"That depends on you."
"How so, sir?"
"I have long suspected you."
"You need not tell me that, sir."
"But I have not communicated my suspicions. And now that they are certainties, I come first to you. In one word, will you forego your intention, since it is found out?"
"How can I forego what never was in my head?" said Wylie. "Cast away the ship! Why, there's no land within two thousand miles. Founder a vessel in the Pacific! Do you think my life is not as sweet to me as yours is to you?"
