"Must I say again, he is not captain now?... Ben, did you know I spent more than a year in that sorry city of Boston?"
"No, how should I?"
"Oh, you might've.... More than a year, seeking support for the greatest venture a man's spirit ever conceived. I was ignored, laughed at, brushed aside. I sought out the merchants, for behind all the pious canting they've become the rulers of your Boston and I suppose you know it. Sought 'em out one after another, and spilled my heart, the while they looked at my poor clothes and shuffled their feet and remembered important business. I sought audience with your Governor Dudley himself—Mother of God, would he even admit me to the bloody presence? Queen Anne's man, body and soul.... Somehow, Ben—and mark this, I pray you—at some time that miserable year, the story was passed about that I had been with John Quelch. And—why, damn their souls, so I was, for a while. I did ship with him, being penniless and starving, and escaped him as soon as I might. He was evil, Ben, a common pirate, it was right he should hang. I served him briefly, I did that, having no choice, and the rumor of it was made a cause why I should be persecuted, ignored, laughed at, brushed aside. Compassed about.... And still, didn't I ask far less than was asked by Cabot, Drake, Magellan? A trifle of support, mind you, a tiny fleet, a sound crew, a charter to explore—don't you see any man of them might have compounded his fortune a hundred times and written his name in history beside my own? But would they? You know the answer, and they shall know the whole of it too, in time.... And somehow, Ben—while I went from one to another wearing my heart out—somehow a few of them did finally understand a little of what I so recklessly told concerning this venture. Certain of them began to think: Why not the venture without the man? You see? Have you ever heard of such a thing as stealing a man's dreams?"
"What has this to do with Captain Jenks?"
"Surely it's plain? The man you childishly call Captain was one of those who began to ask themselves: What if this wild, shabby, tedious Irishman hath glimpsed something of value after all? What if there are new lands for the taking in the western sea, and why should this miserable noisy Sligo man, this old Shawn, why should he have any part of it?... Why, I couldn't believe this of Peter Jenks myself for a long time—never came to me that he was one of 'em, till he hired that man Hanson in the room of me—and that in despite of your great-uncle."
"But——"
"Whisht, Ben! You'll be telling me your great-uncle gave me no promise hard and fast, but I know men's hearts. But for Jenks, I'd've had my way, and glory in it for Mr. Kenny as well as me, don't you doubt it. It wasn't to be. When he took on that agent Hanson, sure my voice was plain enough, I could see how they'd been planning it all the while. You see now, don't you? Had I not taken Artemis from him, Jenks would have her now the other side of the Horn, and Boston would never see her again. But I, Ben—why, I shall give her back the name of Artemis, and I'll send her home, when she's taken us to the new country...." In the silence Ben caught the glint of something—merely the copper farthing; at length Shawn spoke again, quietly: "True, Ben—nothing before you now but the Line, and the South Atlantic, and the Horn. Nothing below you but the Atlantic. And once on a time wasn't I a boy of your age who believed that God was over me?" He was moving away. Ben thought he might be weeping, but his voice often sounded so when his eyes were dry. "And over you, over all that breathe. Oh, but in those days I was that young and foolish you wouldn't know the misguided thoughts that would seize hold of me and deceive, for the voices I heard then were not God's voice, they were far other. Maybe even now I'm not certain of anything, except that I cannot die until I've looked again on the color of the western sea." He returned swift and silent out of the shadow and stood close to the helm, eyes level with Ben's; no taller than Ben. Not even as tall, perhaps. "What now? Why did I say that, Ben? Why did I say, the color of the western sea?"
Ben supposed his right hand could flash away from the tiller to his belt, if it must. "How could I know why you say any of the things you do?"
"Ah? But you must sail with me, all the way. Will you not say it? Will you be forcing me to destroy you? Then I'll be alone, Ben. These men with us—what are they but phantoms, all of 'em? Knife 'em, they'd bleed smoke—not blood, Ben—smoke, and drift away downwind. None aboard but you and me, now that's no lie...."
But Ben, for sheer pity and disgust, terror and bewilderment, self-blame and homesickness and again pity, could not speak at all, and Shawn moved away, himself like smoke, past another black shadow by the mizzen that must have heard all he said; at this Shawn snarled: "If the wind changes, Mr. Marsh, you needn't be calling me—I shall know it."