McKenzie had spent many hours thinking over matters, and he was unable to make up his mind. Since the ship had been in port, the miseries of the passage had been forgotten, and he had already gotten into that frame of mind—common to all sailors—wherein he thought that his future sea-faring would be easier. He knew the ropes now, and, of course, it had been his first voyage, and it had been an unusually rough one. If he was to get on in his chosen profession, he would have to go through his apprenticeship. He voiced these thoughts to Nickerson, who nodded understandingly.
“Naow, sonny,” he said, when Donald had finished. “I know haow ye feel, but I’m agoin’ to tell you something. Do you know that your uncle shipped you on that hooker to get rid of you? Do you know that Muirhead and Hinkel tried to do you in? Did you know that the two of them framed up that jigger-gaff accident off the Plate, and that Hinkel cut the tackle rope of the gaff vang to make sure you’d go overboard? Do you know that Muirhead tried to leave you to drown, and that I just came on deck in the nick of time and made him bring the ship to the wind while we got a boat over? No? Waal, son, ye may look flabbergasted, but it’s gospel truth! They tried every dodge they could think of outside of plain murder, and it was me that spiked their guns!”
Donald stared at him in open-eyed astonishment, but the other’s stern features betrayed no emotion, and he puffed his cigar and continued.
“I took you out of Hinkel’s watch after the jigger-gaff incident to save your life when I got wind of the game. The skipper got cold feet then and gave up all ideas of doing away with you. Off the Horn, the ship got him frightened—blamed frightened—and he knew that Hinkel was no good as a second mate, so he agreed to break him and send him for’ard. Hinkel had fallen down on his job and the skipper was scared of me, and it was me that put that Dutchman out of the afterguard. Then when Hinkel got hurt and thought he was going to die, I got a long confession out of him and it don’t show your uncle up in a good light.” He paused, took a drink of coffee, and puffed on his cigar.
“Aye, son, your uncle is a downy bird—a proper queer-feller! He had old Muirhead under his thumb for some ship-scuttling job which he did for some one, and the old cuss was in dead fear it would be found out, and he would do any dirty work your uncle asked him to do. Then this Hinkel was another rotter, and another of your uncle’s assassins. You ain’t likely to know it, but your skunk of a relative was managing owner of the Orkney Isles, and I have good reason to believe he got palm-oiled to get that half-baked apprentice McFee out of the way. I think McFee’s step-father engineered that job and Hinkel confessed to me, when he thought he was agoin’ to die, that he got paid for doing it through your measly uncle. Aye, aye,—the more I learn about some ship-owners the more I feel sure that hell ’ull be overcrowded!”
“What—what would be his reason for trying to get rid of me?” Donald enquired in a daze at Nickerson’s astounding revelations.
“Hard to imagine,” replied the other. “You ain’t got any money and there ain’t nobody to benefit by your death, is they?”
Donald pondered for a minute. “No! I can’t think of anything. There’s only mother and I. When the dad was drowned, he left nothing.”
Nickerson grunted and gazed on the smoke from his cigar. “He’s got some deep object, son,” he said after a pause, “and I’ll take time to find it aout.” He did not speak for several moments, then he threw away his cigar and turned to Donald.