"You weren't over comfortable with that crowd when you changed me for it?"
"I was not, if that's any comfort to you."
Farrell grinned. "Of course it's a comfort to me. They sent you to Coventry more or less; and I'll tell you the reason, if you don't know it. There was a whisper going round the ship forward.… One of the hands—it being a clear day—had heard a dog barking from the shore. Another fancied that he had. Then a third called to mind having heard somewhere—he couldn't remember the public, or even the port—that when old Buck Vliet marooned his missionary he'd left a dog with him in compassion.… I should tell you two gentlemen that the yarn about Vliet and how he caught a missionary by mistake, and how he'd short-circuited him somewhere in a holy terror, was a kind of legend all along the coast and around the Eastern islands. I dare say it crossed to the Atlantic in time: for again it was the kind of story that starts by being funny and gets funnier as each man chooses to improve on it.… All I can say is, that if the body you and I, Foe, looked down upon, that afternoon, belonged to Vliet's missionary, I don't want to hear any more fun about it.… So you see, gentlemen, this God-forsaken lot, down in the I'll Away's fo'c'sle, patched it up amongst them that this man, in his hurry, had deserted his dog. Now, as I shall tell you, if they had reasoned, they'd have known that the dog wouldn't starve, anyway. But they didn't reason. They were a God-forsaken lot—mostly broken men, pliers about the islands—and it just went against their instinct that anyone should forsake so much as a dog. If they'd known you had forsaken a man, you Foe, they'd have tarred and burnt you.
"—Captain Hales, as it happened, hadn't caught the barking or any faint echo of it: the reason being that he was hard of hearing, although in the rest of his senses sharper than all his crew rolled together, and in wits or at a bargain a match for any trader between Chile and Palmerston. Also I have heard it rumoured that he had run a bit wild in his youth, found himself within the law or outside of it (I forget which), and come down to the South Pacific for the good of his health. But that was many years ago. He was now a middle-aged man, and had learnt enough about these waters to call you a fool if you suggested by way of flattery that what he didn't know about them wasn't worth knowing.
"—Something, at any rate, in his past had turned him into a silent, brooding man, seldom coming out of his thoughts until it came to a bargain, when he woke up like a giant from sleep. His deafness helped to fasten this silent habit deeper upon him. Also he was touchy about his deafness: didn't like at any time to be reminded of it; and was apt to fly into a sudden rage if anyone brought up a reminder, even by a chance hint. And that, belike, was the main reason why he alone on board—barring yourself, Foe—never heard tell of this barking which he had missed to hear with his own ears.
"—And now for one thing more, Foe—and it'll make you squirm by and by! Like most deaf men he was a bit suspicious: and looking at you sideways as you came on board—what with one thing and another, not liking missionaries as a line in trade, and, in particular, mistrusting the cut of your jib, he thought things over a bit and altered his helm.
"—I'll explain. You see, you not only came aboard looking what you are, but you came aboard fairly slimed over, in addition, with all that had ever been told or guessed against Buck Vliet's missionary. The stories didn't agree about his sect: but they agreed that Vliet, though a ruffian, hadn't marooned the man just for fun—that he must have been a hard case somehow. The stories might vary concerning Vliet's reasons: but they agreed that the man hadn't come to it by sheer over-prayerfulness: and the conclusion was—reasonable or unreasonable—that you, Foe, must have been a bad potato somehow, or at best a severe trial, if so hardened a stomach as Vliet's hadn't been able to keep you down. Worse; he guessed you for a spy.
"—Here, Sir Roderick and Mr. Collingwood, I must tell you that Vliet and Hales, as masters in this knock-about off-island trade, had grown to be rival kings in their way, and Hales in his brooding fashion as jealous as fire. From all I've heard, Vliet hadn't the ambition to be properly jealous: all he objected to was his business being cut.
"—Vliet was an old man—a regular hoary sinner, who kept his trade secrets by a very simple method. He stocked his crews entirely with lads of his own begetting. White, black, he didn't care how many wives he carried to sea, or how much of a family wash he carried in the shrouds on a fine day. He ran his trade on secrecy and close family limitations. He had no range. His joy was to have a corner unknown to a soul else in the world. Fat, lazy, wicked, and sly— that was Vliet. He belonged to the old school.
"—Now, for years, Hales—of the new school, and challenger—had been chasing after a rumour that chased after Vliet from port to port—a rumour that Vliet drew on an uncharted island, in those latitudes, known only to himself and to so much of his progeny as the old Solomon didn't mistrust enough to lose overboard.… Well, the belief at Valparaiso is that old Buck Vliet, with his schooner—on which he grudged a penny for repairs—had found an ocean grave at last, somewhere. The guess is that he overdid the Two Brothers in the end, being careless of warnings, with a top-hamper of wives. There is also a legend—likely invented to account for the name of his schooner—that he left all his money to a twin brother in business in Salt Lake City, and that the brother and his brother's wives had fitted out a new schooner to hunt for the island's whereabouts.