The boatswain, whose watch it now was, and who had been making a pretence of superintending some job on the forecastle while Wilde was talking to me, presently slouched along the deck and came up on to the poop. Arrived at the head of the weather poop ladder, he paused and, facing forward, appeared to be regarding the set of the canvas attentively. Then, with a very sheepish air, he joined me and took the seat which Wilde had not long vacated. I saw that the fellow was dying of curiosity to learn what had passed between the ex-schoolmaster and myself, but was determined not to help him by opening the conversation; the result being a long—and apparently on the part of the boatswain an embarrassing pause. However, at length he broke ground by remarking with a conciliating smile:
“So I sees you’ve been havin’ a yarn with Mr Wilde, eh, Mr Troubridge? Have he told ye, sir, of the plan that we’ve made up among us for startin’ a new country?”
“He has told me—to my intense astonishment—that I have become shipmates with a round hundred or so of consummate idiots—leaving the women and children out of the question,” I answered sharply.
“A–ah!” returned the boatswain, with a sorrowful shake of the head. “I felt, somehow, as you wouldn’t see the thing as we sees it. All the same, sir, I hopes—yes, I most fervently hopes—as he’ve been able to persuade ye to jine in with us.”
“He tells me that if I refuse to do so I am to be lashed up, neck and heels, and hove overboard with a sinker attached to my neck some fine night when the women and children are all below. Do you approve of that arrangement, Polson?” I demanded.
“Well—no—I can’t say as I do; not altogether,” answered the boatswain, fidgeting uneasily where he sat. “But I hopes it won’t come to that, Mr Troubridge. I don’t hold with forcin’ anybody to do what they don’t want to do; but I don’t see as it’d do you no very serious harm for to agree to navigate this here ship to the spot where we wants her took to; and that’s all as you’re to be asked to do.”
“And if I should choose to refuse, I suppose you would stand by and see me drowned, if indeed you did not lend a hand to lash me up?” I asked, infusing all the sarcasm I could into the question.
“No, no, Mr Troubridge!” exclaimed Polson, justly indignant that I should bring such a monstrous charge against him. “I wouldn’t lift a finger to hurt ye, sir—I shouldn’t have no need to, for there’s lots o’ chaps among them emigrants ready enough to do any mortal thing that Mr Wilde tells ’em to. I should just go below and have nothin’ to do with the job.”
“By which simple means you would secure the acquittal of the thing you call your conscience against the charge of murdering me!” I ejaculated scornfully. “Do you know, Polson, that the man who consents to a murder is every whit as guilty as he who actually does the deed?”
“Well, I dunno,” answered Polson; “I don’t see how that can be, Mr Troubridge. If another man chooses to murder ye, what’s that got to do wi’ me? Besides, what can we do? All hands of us has already signed a paper agreein’ to obey Mr Wilde’s orders.”