"He couldn't tell me; he doesn't know; the crew was engaged without knowing. He'll only know where he's going when he gets there."
"I shouldn't wonder if they were going to the devil," said an unbeliever: "it looks like it."
"And such pay," said Clifton's friend, getting warm—"five times more than the ordinary pay. If it hadn't been for that, Richard Shandon wouldn't have found a soul to go with him. A ship with a queer shape, going nobody knows where, and looking more like not coming back than anything else, it wouldn't have suited this child."
"Whether it would have suited you or not," answered Cornhill, "you couldn't have been one of the crew of the Forward."
"And why, pray?"
"Because you don't fulfil the required conditions. I read that all married men were excluded, and you are in the category, so you needn't talk. Even the very name of the ship is a bold one. The Forward—where is it to be forwarded to? Besides, nobody knows who the captain is."
"Yes, they do," said a simple-faced young sailor.
"Why, you don't mean to say that you think Shandon is the captain of the Forward?" said Cornhill.
"But——" answered the young sailor—
"Why, Shandon is commander, and nothing else; he's a brave and bold sailor, an experienced whaler, and a jolly fellow worthy in every respect to be the captain, but he isn't any more captain than you or I. As to who is going to command after God on board he doesn't know any more than we do. When the moment has come the true captain will appear, no one knows how nor where, for Richard Shandon has not said and hasn't been allowed to say to what quarter of the globe he is going to direct his ship."