“Please, sir,” he said, “do let me take them away, sir.”
“No,” I said. “I grease them myself, thank you.” I thought that this would end the business; but no such matter.
“Please, sir,” he said, “I wish you would let me take them away. The captain'll wale me if I don't. He gave me orders, sir.”
“Don't call me 'sir,'” I said. “I'll see the captain myself.”
I walked quickly to the companion-way, below which (listening to us, like the creature he was) sat the captain, carving the end of a stick.
“Please, sir,” I said, “I've already greased my boots this morning. I always grease them.” (I had only had them about twelve hours.) “If I blacked them they'd get so dry that they would crack.”
“All right. All right, boy,” he answered. “I forgot you wore soft-leather boots. They're the kind they buy up to make salt beef of at the Navy Yard.” He grinned in my face, as though he were pleased; but a few minutes later, when I had gone forward, I heard him thrashing the wretched boy, because he had failed to get the boots from me for him.
I soon found that I was pretty closely watched. If I went forward to the fo'c's'le, I found myself dogged by the ship's boy, who was blubbering from his whipping, poor lad, as though his heart would break. In between his sobs, he tried to tell me the use of everything forward, which was trying to me, as I knew more than he knew. If I went aft, the mate would come rolling up, to ask me if I could hear the dog-fish bark yet. If I went below the captain got on to my tracks at once. He was by far the worst of the three: the other two were only obeying his orders. I went into my cabin hoping to get rid of him there; but no, it was no use. In he came, too, with the excuse that he wished to see if I had enough clothes on my bunk. It was more worrying than words can tell. All the time I wondered whether he would end by knocking me senseless so that he might search my boots at his ease. I had the fear of that strongly on me. I was tempted, yet feared, to drive him from me by threatening him with my pistol. His constant dogging of me was intolerable. But had I threatened him, he would have had an excuse for maltreating me. My duty was to save the letters, not to worry about my own inconveniences. Often, since then, I have suffered agonies of remorse at not giving up the letters meekly. Had I done so, I might, who knows, have saved some two thousand lives. Well. We are all agents of a power greater than ourselves. Though I was, it may be, doing wrong then, I was doing wrong unwittingly. Had things happened only a little differently, my wrong would have turned out a glorious right. The name of Martin Hyde would have been in the history books. He watched me narrowly as I took off my waistcoat (pretending to be too hot), nor did he forget to eye the waistcoat. “See here,” he said. “Do you know how a sailor folds a waistcoat? Give it to me now. I'll show you.” He snatched it from my hands with that rudeness which, in a boorish nature, passes for fun; he only wished to feel it over so that if any letter were sewn within it he might hear the paper crackle. The sailor's way of folding a waistcoat, as shown by him then, was just the way which bent all the cloth in folds. He seemed to be much disgusted at hearing no crackling as he folded it. I could have laughed outright at his woeful face, had I been less anxious. Had he been worth his salt as a spy he would have lulled all my suspicions to sleep before beginning to search for letters. Instead of that he went to work as crudely as a common footpad..