“No,” said Mr Gaunt, “I frankly admit I should not; otherwise, I suppose I should have been a seaman, and not a civil engineer. But the life was of your own choosing, I presume?”
“Yes, it was, and I don’t complain of it,” said Williams. “The thing I complain of is, that, seeing what a life of hardship and peril ours is, we do not get paid a half nor a quarter enough. What would be the use of ships without sailors to man them? We are just as necessary to a ship as her captain; yet look at the difference in his pay and ours! I say it is not fair; it is rank injustice; sailors have just been robbed all these years, and the long and the short of it is that the crew of this ship means to get back part of what has been stolen from them by the dishonesty of shipowners.”
“But, my good fellow,” exclaimed the engineer, “you are taking an altogether wrong view of the question. Admitting that you are as necessary to the ship as her captain, you entirely overlook the important fact that one captain is sufficient for a ship, no matter how large she may be, whilst one seaman alone is of very trifling value; hence the difference in the scale of pay.”
It was clear enough from the expression of the mutineer’s face that this view of the question had never before been presented to him; he was completely “taken aback,” and for a minute or two could find absolutely nothing to say.
“Well!” he exclaimed at last, “it is clear enough that it is no use for an ignorant man like me to try to argue with an educated gentleman like you; you are bound to go to wind’ard of me the very first tack, and I was a fool for attempting it. But there are other matters which, in my opinion, fully justify the step we have taken.”
“The fellow may call himself an ignorant man, but his language is that of a person who has enjoyed at least some of the benefits of education,” thought Gaunt. But he merely said:
“Indeed! May I ask what they are?”
“Certainly. The question is just this. Why should I, and thousands like me, have to work and slave for a bare living, whilst there are others who never do a stroke of work in their whole lives and yet have houses, and land, and money, horses and carriages—in fact, all that heart can wish for? Is this fair, or right, or just?”
“Assuredly it is,” was the reply, “and so, I think, you will admit, if you will give the matter a moment’s consideration. It is not your fault or mine that you and I do not occupy the enviable position in life to which you have just referred; it is the fault, if fault there be, of our ancestors. They did not happen to be money-getters, and therefore, if we wish to enjoy the advantages attendant upon the possession of a fortune, large or small, we must get the fortune for ourselves. Just look at the question for a moment from the millionaire’s point of view. If you happened to possess a fortune would you consider it fair or just that you should be called upon to divide it evenly with everybody worse off than yourself? For that, I fancy, is the idea you have in your mind.”
This was another poser which Williams evidently found it wholly impossible to answer. He hung his head in deep and perplexed thought for some minutes, and at length said: