CHAPTER VIII
WHEN Black Pawl boasted to the missionary that the men forward were so loyal they brought him word of Red Pawl’s talk to them, he spoke the truth. When he said there was not one of them who listened to the mate, he was mistaken. There was one—Spiess. Spiess had always received more than his share of rough usage; the man was a natural target for harsh words and for blows. Furthermore, he had not that fundamental good nature which made the others of the crew laugh at Black Pawl’s cheerful buffets. Also he lacked that sympathy of heart which dwelt in the others, and let them see the despair which the Captain hid behind his amiable violence.
Spiess listened to Red Pawl, and listened assentingly. Red made a dupe of the man, using him for his own ends. The mate hated his father; also he feared him. He called down death, in his thoughts, upon the Captain’s head; but he would never have dared strike the blow himself. He might have done it, a dozen times. Black Pawl was careless of his own safety. He never wore about him one of the revolvers which were kept in the cabin. Darrin was like him in this; but Red Pawl habitually went armed. The Captain trusted to his fists, and with some reason. He was the match of any two men aboard, saving perhaps his son, in using those lean fists of his.
Red Pawl told Spiess this, one day. “You talk and curse at him, under your breath,” the mate said openly to the other. “But what good is that? He masters you with his open hands. You can never touch him with them. Remember, he told you to bring better than fists next time.”
And Spiess, gripping the wheel-spokes, said under his breath: “Aye; and I will.”
Red Pawl laughed. “You will—thus; and you will—so,” he derided. “But you do—nothing, save take what he gives, and mouth at him behind his back.”
“I will,” Spiess told him. And he glanced at the mate sidewise. “When I do, like is, you’ll be on my back.”
Red Pawl was past caution by this time, in his hatred of the Captain. “When you do,” he said, “I’ll be left master o’ the Deborah. I’ll be at your back, not on it. And—I’ll see the log is entered in a fashion you’d like. When you do!”
Spiess looked at him suspiciously. He was not a trusting man. “When I do,” he said sullenly, “you can log and be damned.”
Then Black Pawl came up from below, and Red moved away from the wheel, and the Captain laughed at them both.