“I’ll ask you to remember this conversation when you’re under oath, sir,” he cried eagerly.
I confess the man aroused in me a reluctant admiration. I looked about his mean, iron-walled room. During the pampero the place had been awash. The white paint was peeling off in huge scabs, and iron-rust was everywhere. The floor was filthy. The place stank with the stench of his sickness. His pannikin and unwashed eating-gear from the last meal were scattered on the floor: His blankets were wet, his clothing was wet. In a corner was a heterogeneous mass of soggy, dirty garments. He lay in the very bunk in which he had brained O’Sullivan. He had been months in this vile hole. In order to live he would have to remain months more in it. And while his rat-like vitality won my admiration, I loathed and detested him in very nausea.
“Aren’t you afraid?” I demanded. “What makes you think you will last the voyage? Don’t you know bets are being made that you won’t?”
So interested was he that he seemed to prick up his ears as he raised on his elbow.
“I suppose you’re too scared to tell me about them bets,” he sneered.
“Oh, I’ve bet you’ll last,” I assured him.
“That means there’s others that bet I won’t,” he rattled on hastily. “An’ that means that there’s men aboard the Elsinore right now financially interested in my taking-off.”
At this moment the steward, bound aft from the galley, paused in the doorway and listened, grinning. As for Charles Davis, the man had missed his vocation. He should have been a land-lawyer, not a sea-lawyer.
“Very well, sir,” he went on. “I’ll have you testify to that in Seattle, unless you’re lying to a helpless sick man, or unless you’ll perjure yourself under oath.”
He got what he was seeking, for he stung me to retort: