So, reluctantly, we dropped the matter, after reporting it both to the local authorities and to our own consul; for however deeply we distrusted Gleazen and Matterson, in Captain North we had implicit faith.
To prepare for the voyage, we took on board in the next few days supplies of divers kinds, and though I had learned much by now of the ways of life at sea, many of the things puzzled me. One day it was a vast number of empty water-casks; another day, more than a hundred barrels of farina; yet another day, a boatload of beans and one of lumber. There were mysterious gatherings in the cabin from which Arnold and I were excluded,—we could not fail to notice that they took place when Captain North was ashore,—but to which gentry with dingy wristbands and shiny faces were bid; and presently we saw stowed away forward iron boilers and iron bars, a great box of iron spoons, a heap of rusty shackles, and still puzzling, although perhaps less so, a mighty store of gunpowder.
All this occasioned a long argument between Arnold and Captain North and myself, which fully enlightened me concerning the purpose of the mysterious supplies. But reluctant though we were to take the goods on board, there was nothing that we could do to stop it so long as my uncle, under Gleazen's influence, insisted on it; for as owner of the brig, and in that particular port where contraband trade played so important a part, he could have had us even jailed, if necessary, to carry his point. Our only way to serve him best in the end was to stand by in silence and let the stores, such as they were, go into the hold.
All the time my uncle came and went in a silence so deep that, if I had not now and then caught his eyes fixed upon me with a sadness that revealed, more than words, how unhappy he was, I could scarcely have believed that he was the same Seth Upham in whose house I had lived so long. From a person of importance in his own town and a leader among those of us who had set forth with him, he had fallen to a place so shameful that I felt for him the deepest concern, and for the precious villains that were thus dishonoring my mother's brother, the deepest anger.
"There are no pirates on the seas nowadays," I remarked one morning to Neil Gleazen who stood beside me watching all that went forward—and all the time I watched his face. "Why then should we set out armed to fight a sloop-of-war? Or ship a pair of small-swords on the cabin bulkhead?"
"Trade and barter, Joe," he replied. "The niggers fairly tumble over themselves to buy such tricks. There's money in it, Joe." Then he laughed as if mightily pleased with himself.
"But," I persisted, scarcely veiling my impatience, "you've said more than once that trade is not the object of our voyage."
"True, Joe." He lowered his voice. "But that's no reason to neglect a chance to turn our money over. Ah, Joe, you're a good lad, and we must have a bout with the foils some day soon. I'm sure we'll get along well together, you and I."
He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder; but the old spell was broken, and when he had gone, I ruminated for a long time on one thing and another that had occurred in the past months.