Parsons burst into a hearty laugh.
“Why, Williams,” he said, “I wouldn’t ha’ believed you was such a greenhorn. You can’t mean what you’re sayin’, shipmate. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been a pirate, and I’m precious certain I never have—or I don’t believe we should either of us be sittin’ in this here snug fo’c’s’le to-night—so I reckon neither of us knows very much about the business. But anybody, not a born fool, must understand without much tellin’ that a pirate’s life wouldn’t be worth havin’. As to work, he’d have to work just as hard as any of us, with the chance of bein’ shot at a minute’s notice by the skipper or either of the mates, if he didn’t happen to do his work just exactly to their likin’. Then he’d be in constant dread of bein’ overhauled by a man-o’-war, and mayhap strung up to the yard-arm; he daresn’t venture into a civilised port, to save his life. And then, what about the murders he has to commit? Faugh! no piratin’ for me, thank ’ee.”
“Nobody’s wanting you, Tim Parsons, or anybody else, to go pirating” was the rejoinder. “I was only talking about the thing in a general sort of a way. But, though, as you say, I never was a pirate myself, I happen to know that the trade ain’t quite such a bad one as you’d make out after all. First and foremost, there’s no occasion for murdering at all. ‘Dead men tell no tales,’ we know; but there’s ways of stopping the telling of tales without cutting men’s throats. There’s islands enough scattered about here and there quite out of the regular tracks of ships, the natives of which don’t see the colour of canvas once in a lifetime; what’s to prevent a pirate-ship landing her prisoners there? They’d have a jolly enough life of it in such a place, and be out of harm’s way. Then, as to work, I should keep just enough prisoners aboard to do all the rough, dirty work, and let my regular crew have easy times of it. And with such a ship as this, for instance, what need to be afraid of a man-o’-war, even if there weren’t a dozen ways of bamboozling the ‘gold-buttons,’ which there are. Then, as to going into port—that’s easy enough managed by a man with a good head-piece on his shoulders; and, as I was saying, a lucky six months’ cruise, and your fortune’s made. Then, what do you do? Why, you watches your chance, scuttles your ship some fine night when the weather’s favourable, and goes ashore with your swag, as a castaway seaman whose ship has sprung a leak and foundered. Pooh! don’t tell me. The thing could be easy enough done.”
“Then, I s’pose you’re one o’ those chaps who wouldn’t mind layin’ hands on other people’s goods?” quietly inquired Parsons.
“Ah! I see you’ve misunderstood me altogether, or you wouldn’t ask such a question as that, shipmate,” replied Williams. “No—if you mean by ‘laying my hands on other people’s goods,’ would I go to any of your chests and help myself—I would not. I’m not a thief; I’m as honest as ever a man here. You’ve got nothing in any of your chests, I reckon, but what I call necessaries—things a man needs and has a right to have. But—it may seem a strange thing to say, mates, yet it’s what I think—no man has a right to more than he needs of anything whilst other people have to go short. Why, for example, should some people have more cash than they know how to spend—and that, too, without working for it—whilst we poor sailor-men have to strive night and day, in fair weather and foul, just to keep soul and body from parting company? I say it ain’t fair; things ain’t evenly divided, as they should be. We’ve just as much right to ride about in a carriage as any of them swells ashore—we’re just as good men as they are—and if I had the chance I’d think I was doing no wrong to help myself to a little of their spare cash to make myself comfortable with. That’s what I think about it.”
“Ay, ay,” muttered one or two, “that sounds fair enough when you come to overhaul the thing in all its bearings.”
Others maintained silence; they instinctively recognised the falsity of Williams’ logic though their intellects were not acute enough to enable them to put their fingers on the weak spot. Others, again, shook their heads dissentingly. But Parsons, the irrepressible, after looking at Williams in blank surprise for a moment or two, broke out in a tone of mingled contempt and raillery:
“There, there, you’ve said enough, man; and now you’d better clap a stopper over all. You’re an uncommon smart man, Williams,—I won’t deny it—almost too smart, it seems to me,—and you’ve just been talking like this to give us an idee, as it were, of your smartness. You argufy like a lawyer, shipmate, there’s no mistake about that; but you can’t persuade me that you believe a single word of what you’ve been sayin’. Why, man, if you hadn’t already proved yourself to be the primest seaman and the most willing hand aboard this here dandy little hooker I’m blest if I shouldn’t almost be inclined to believe you was a Socialist. Pah!” and he spat contemptuously on the floor of the forecastle.
“There goes eight bells,” he continued, “and on deck we goes, the starboard watch. Whose wheel is it?”