"With a seaman's fortitude apparently, although not, alas, in a state of grace. He was struck down soon after the enemy boarded. Wilks saw him lying in his blood and cursing them, but did not see the moment of his death, whether he then turned his thought to the Lord."
"Well, Mr. Eames," said John Kenny, "you have accomplished your errand, and I thank you for the trouble you have taken to bring me word. I beg you also, commend me to your good Captain Bart. I will speak with him when I may."
"I keep thinking in what sorry fashion I came home on this road last night."
"Forget that, Ben."
"I can't, quite. I feel as though I'd given him another burden when already he hath too much to bear—well, you did say, didn't you, that he wasn't too troubled about my—my——"
"Wasn't at all. Would you have everyone perfect, devil any lapse from virtue, and yourself a saint in ivory?"
"Oh, I know.... I swear I ought not to be going to Harvard. You must go, but damn it, I'm no scholar. Uncle John himself wishes me to go into trade with him some day. I say, if I do, it ought to be now."
"I disagree."
"Ay, you too.... Ru, a few weeks ago Uncle John told me—only in passing, because then it was nothing to trouble him—that he had debts waiting on the profit the ship Iris was to have brought him. Most of the debt is from the building of Artemis, and her maiden voyage won't have fetched enough to satisfy it. It could happen, Ru, the creditors will be on top of him like a pack of wolves."