"Dash me," said the old boatswain, staring at the girl with quite open admiration, "his was a harder lot than we fancied. Well, he concluded to take my advice. He turned to an' done his work like a man, an' I never seen a feller pick up so. Afore he left us he was as hard as nails, an' by way of bein' a prime seaman, too. The mate didn't manhandle him none, but there was bad blood 'twixt them two men. The mate was allus a pickin' on him an' a bullyin' of him. It was a kind of battle between 'em. The mate anxious to provoke an outbreak on Smith's part, which I means Beekman, an' Beekman determined not to give the mate no handle agin him. We had a hell of a--I beg your pardon, Miss, but that word jest describes the ship an' the v'yage. I never did see such a succession of gales. We was weeks gittin' round the Horn, an' there was a dead beat agin the wind nigh all the way up to the line. One night, I disremember the date, but I got it here"--he tapped the oilskin package to which he clung so tightly--"all hands was called on suddenly to reef tops'ls. The old man was for carryin' on, you know; he'd taken in the r'yals, but the to'gall'nts'ls was still set, an' the sticks was bendin' like whips when he decided to git 'em off her. Now there was a mast-man, a half-witted Dutchman, aboard named Wramm."
"Jacob Wramm," said Templin. "God rest his soul."
"He done a lubberly thing. He cast off the wrong halliards, an' we lost the main to'gall'nt mast. It was in the mid watch, an' Wramm had been takin' a snooze under the lee rail or he wouldn't have done it. The mate was very vi'lent with him. He had kicked him awake, au' when the mast carried away he hit him over the head with a belayin' pin, thinking, doubtless, to let some sense into his thick skull, but instead he let the life out of him."
"Do you mean that he killed him?" asked Maynard in amazement, while the others held their breath at this matter-of-fact description of tyranny and murder.
"Aye, sir, I means jest that. There's a lot o' things that goes on aboard your ships, that neither you nor nobody else in New York knows nothin' about."
"Evidently. Proceed."
"Wramm died the next day, but meanwhile, arter we'd cleared away the wreck an' got the ship snug, we took Wramm, who was still breathin' but unconscious, to his berth in the fo'c's'l. Arter we'd examined him, Beekman said he was goin' aft to see the old man."
"Did Captain Fish permit such brutality?"
"I ain't wishful to say nothin' agin a man that's dead an' that can't defend hisself, but him an' Salver, which he was in charge of the other boat, was much the same kind of men as Woywod, only not quite so vi'lent. The cap'n was an old man an' he wan't so free with his fists, but he allus backed up the mates in whatever they done. Well, Beekman insisted on seein' the cap'n, an' arter the mate had inspected Wramm an' seen he was pretty bad off, he thought best to let him go aft. Templin here was busy about the mizzenmast, an' he can tell what happened, though we've got it all down in writin'."
"If you please, ma'am an' gents," said old Templin, stepping forward and taking up the tale, "I heard v'ices raised high in the cabin, which I could see into it through the skylight which covers it an' lets in light an', when it's open, air. You understand?"