The captain rose and took a turn or two across the room. He was a shrewd judge of men, had watched Percival closely during the conversation, and was strongly inclined to believe all he said.
His account of the captain's relations with the ship's company tallied precisely with what he had previously heard from the men, and it seemed altogether improbable, if not impossible, that he could have originated some of the statements.
"I have always suspected," said the captain, sitting down again, "that there was foul play of some kind. I have known Ezra Aldrich from the egg, and knew he was capable of any kind of villany; never wanted him to go in the ship, but was overruled by others. If what you say is true, it certainly looks like it. But how do you know that he was sold? You have no proof. He might have been, and probably was, murdered. There are plenty of renegade Spaniards in Martinique, and Frenchmen, too, that would stab a man in in the back in the night for two dollars. There was Enoch Freeman, of North Yarmouth, a cooper, had a shop there for years, used to go out in the fall and come back after it began to be hot (he went out with me a good many times), had some difficulty with a Frenchman about coopering a cargo of sugar. He saw a nigger hanging around his shop, and one of his men said to him, 'Mr. Freeman, that nigger means to kill you.' Freeman walks right up to the fellow, and says, 'What did that Frenchman offer you to kill me?' 'Two dollars.' 'Go and kill him, and I'll give you four.' The nigger went and killed him."
"But I know he sold him."
"How do you know?"
"Because he owned to me he did it."
"How came he to be fool enough to do that?"
"We had some difficulty in Martinique."
"How was that?"
"We were all discharged, and lay in the stream. The cap'n went ashore in the morning, and left orders with me to send the boat for him at four o'clock. He came on board drunk and ugly enough. As soon as he got his head over the rail, he sings out, 'Why wasn't that boat sent ashore, as I ordered?'