The boatswain’s mate walked away down to the boat silently and in a seemingly dazed condition, holding up his right hand before him, turning it over, and looking at it as though he had never seen it before. He never opened his lips until the boat was in mid-channel, when, resting on his oar for a moment, he said—
“Well, shipmates, you’ve heard me say to-day words that I wouldn’t have believed this morning I could find courage to say to any human being. Now, I’m not ashamed of ’em—I won’t go back from a single word—but you know as well as I do what a rumpus there’d be if it got to be known that there’d been said what’s been said this arternoon. I don’t care about myself, not a single curse; you and as many more fools as choose can laugh at me until you’re all tired; but mind—I won’t have a word said about them; if this gets abroad they’ll be made uncomfortable, and I won’t have it—D’ye hear, mates, I won’t have it. The first man that says a word about it—well”—with a powerful effort to curb his passion—“the best thing he can do is to take to the water and swim right out to sea; for the sharks ’ll be more marciful to him than I will.”
“All right, matey, all right,” good-humouredly answered one of the men, “you needn’t threaten us—no occasion for that; we’re not going to split on yer, old man; perhaps, if the truth was knowed, there’s others besides yourself as don’t feel pertickler comfortable about this here piratin’ business—I won’t mention no names—and anyhow you may trust me not to say a word about what we’ve heard to-day upon it; and there’s my hand upon it.”
“And mine.”
“And mine.”
The proffered hands were silently grasped with fervour; and then the oars were resumed and the boat sped on her way to the shipyard.