For a year now, Shawn had kept his word. No violence was required of Ben. When action approached, as it did hardly more than a dozen times in the whole year, Ben was tied, not cruelly, down in the forecastle, and saw only the aftermath.
It seemed to Ben now as he watched the tropic glory of the May moon—this fading slowly, for morning was not far away—that it was true enough, as was said in the Book of Proverbs: For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he—and maybe, Ben speculated, any madman is merely one who believes a thing which the one who names him mad is forced to call a lie.
Shawn's blunders in chess were of a curious kind. Ben could beat him as a rule, with effort, and Shawn took it graciously except for a compulsion to curse at his own mistakes. Ben was reminded each time (but did not say) how Reuben could have given the man a handicap of a rook or better and still have beaten him in fourteen or fifteen moves. Shawn would prepare a good enough attack—squatting by the board in the sunlight of the quarterdeck, on days of small wind when the Diana held an even keel and no work needed to be done—and he would be cheerful in the beginning, a little excited, humming in his teeth, moving his pieces with a mirthful flourish. One could not think of him then as anything but a kindly, humorous, thoughtful man, almost a young man, a man on holiday. But in the decisive moment, when he must push through the attack or be damned to it, the humming would cease, the copper farthing would appear in his fingers, and Shawn would either abandon the attack for some meaningless scrimmage in another part of the field, or make one of his blatant errors—a piece left hanging unprotected, a reckless sacrifice gaining nothing. After that, Ben's limited knowledge was sufficient to demolish him. Daniel Shawn would never seem to understand just how this had happened, and Ben did not tell him.
The Diana won no big prizes in that year of prowling up and down the Caribbean. True, she was woefully undermanned, reason enough for risking no lives on anything less than a flat certainty. All the same (said Judah Marsh in Ben's hearing), John Quelch would not have chased a French sloop for three days and then turned tail merely because the little rascal put about in despair and uncovered a gun she shouldn't have possessed. Shawn heard that too, and stared blankly at Marsh, rubbing the coin, until Marsh turned away; but Shawn turned away too, without a reply.
There were braver occasions, such as the breathless evening in July when the sloop Schouven died. That was an open battle with everything risked. Tied securely in the stifling forecastle, Ben could hear as much for himself—the coughing thunder above him of the Diana's larboard gun, presently a distant animal howling, a banging of small arms, a piercing squeal like a stuck pig that was French Jack's war cry. When Ben was released to come on deck the Schouven was already afire, the Diana leaving her behind in the gathering night. Tom Ball and Dummy and Jack were gaudily bleeding from minor wounds, but the Diana had lost nothing. She had won about fifty pounds in silver, a month's provisions, a little long-tailed black monkey and a man—a tall, gray, soft-spoken scoundrel, Cornelius Barentsz, who was even then scrawling his name on the Diana's articles with Shawn's blessing. The terrified monkey clung frantically to Dummy and found a friend....
Ben saw little of Barentsz, who spoke almost no English and was assigned to Mr. Ball's watch, relieving French Jack of his occasional double duty for a week or so until Barentsz was hanged. Ben never altogether understood that. The execution was carried out with no ceremony in the silent hours of the first watch, when Ben was asleep below. Manuel at that time was serving on the larboard watch, and Joey Mills on Marsh's watch with Ben; the two changed places after the hanging, at the request of Mr. Ball, who said he didn't wish to be tempted to do violence to the dirty Portagee when the ketch was so short-handed. It was Matthew Ledyard, in one of his rare impulses to communication, who snarlingly explained the incident to Ben. Barentsz had been discovered in the darkness of the first watch trying to embrace poor giggling weakwitted Manuel like a woman. The articles of the Diana were specific. A week later, though, after the body had been disposed of in the manner prescribed, Shawn asked in the middle of a chess game: "Do you know the true reason why that Dutchman was hanged?" And he set down a Bishop where it could not legally go.
"The piece can't be played there," said Ben.
"Ha?" Shawn stood abruptly and pushed the board aside with his foot. "Devil with the game, my mind's not on it." He had already made his blunder. "You heard my question?"
"I can't say I know the true reason for anything you do."
"I did not hang him, Ben. His destiny hanged him. Nor I don't make much of poor Manuel trying to cut the body down, for 'tis Manuel's destiny to remain weak in the wits and no harm in him, except he may be used for harm by others. But—ah well, 'tis true enough what I told the men, I did find Barentsz so, and I'll have no such Devil's foulness under my command, now that's no lie. But"—he glanced about the sunny deck, where no one else was in earshot—"there was another reason, one I didn't wish the men to know. On second thought—on further instruction—it doesn't matter. You may even tell them if you see fit." He waited, the silence forcing Ben to look up at him at last. "It might be of especial importance to you, Ben Cory, to know that I know Barentsz's true reason for coming aboard my ketch."