"No, sir."
"Do you, Lathrop, know anything about the cargo of the Island Princess? Or anything about the terms under which it is carried?"
"Only in a general way, sir, that it is made up of ginseng and woolen goods shipped to Canton."
Captain Whidden looked at me very sharply indeed. "You are positive that that is all you know?"
"Yes, sir—except, in a general way, that the cargo is uncommonly important."
The three men exchanged glances, and Roger Hamlin nodded as if to corroborate my reply.
"Lathrop," Captain Whidden began again, "I want you to say nothing about this interview after you leave the cabin. It is more important that you hold your peace than you may ever realize—than, I trust, you ever will realize. I am going to ask you to give me your word of honor to that effect."
It seemed to me then that I saw Captain Whidden in a new light. We of the younger generation had inclined to belittle him because he continued to follow the sea at an age when more successful men had established their counting-houses or had retired from active business altogether. But twice his mercantile adventures had proved unfortunate, and now, though nearly sixty years old and worth a very comfortable fortune, he refused to leave again for a less familiar occupation the profession by which he had amassed his competence. I noticed that his hair was gray on his temples, and that his weathered face revealed a certain stern sadness. I felt as if suddenly, in spite of my minor importance on board his ship, I had come closer to the straightforward gentleman, the true Joseph Whidden, than in all the years that I had known him, almost intimately, it had seemed at the time, in my father's house.
"I promise, sir," I said.
He took up a pencil and with the point tapped a piece of paper.