“Join us now,” I urged, meeting him in his mood. “It will be easier for your back.”
“To hell with you,” was his answer. “Go ahead an’ smash the boats. You can hang some of them. But you can’t touch me with the law. ’Tis me that’s a crippled creature of circumstance, too weak to raise a hand against any man—a feather blown about by the windy contention of men strong in their back an’ brainless in their heads.”
“As you please,” I said.
“As I can’t help pleasin’,” he retorted, “bein’ what I am an’ so made for the little flash between the darknesses which men call life. Now why couldn’t I a-ben a butterfly, or a fat pig in a full trough, or a mere mortal man with a straight back an’ women to love me? Go on an’ smash the boats. Play hell to the top of your bent. Like me, you’ll end in the darkness. And your darkness’ll be—as dark as mine.”
“A full belly puts the spunk back into you,” I sneered.
“’Tis on an empty belly that the juice of my dislike turns to acid. Go on an’ smash the boats.”
“Whose idea was the sulphur?” I asked.
“I’m not tellin’ you the man, but I envied him until it showed failure. An’ whose idea was it—to douse the sulphuric into Rhine’s face? He’ll lose that same face, from the way it’s shedding.”
“Nor will I tell you,” I said. “Though I will tell you that I am glad the idea was not mine.”
“Oh, well,” he muttered cryptically, “different customs on different ships, as the cook said when he went for’ard to cast off the spanker sheet.”