"He'll have the spars about our ears before the hour is out!"
"Not he," responded Chips. "Trust Lynch and his luck!"
True enough. The hour passed, and another, and Lynch still carried on without mishap. Indeed, the wind had moderated a bit.
Throughout the watch I kept close by Newman's side. That warning, to look behind me in the dark, had by no means escaped my mind. When we came on deck, Newman said to me, "A good night for a bad job, Jack! Keep your eyes open!" Small advice on such a night, when a man could not have seen his own mother, stood she two feet distant!
That warning had puzzled me, and I did not dare question Newman concerning it. He was not the kind of man one could question. But what was likely to lurk in the dark? "Death," said he. Did that mean he feared a stealthy assassination, a knife thrust from the dark? Did he think that Captain Swope was planning the cold-blooded murder of an able seaman?
There was the question. In one way, it opposed my reason. Of course, this was a hell-ship, and murder might very well take place on board. But that the captain should deliberately plot the removal of a foc'sle hand! Able seamen were not of such importance in a hell-ship.
Yet Newman was more than a foremast hand. God knew who he was, or what his business in the ship, but it was plain he was Swope's enemy, and there was a private feud between them. His mere appearance had caused the Old Man to run below, and remain hidden for three days! . . . There was the lady. She was Newman's friend. She knew the Old Man's moods, and she was positive about it. The warning was doubtless well founded, I concluded. And Newman was my friend, my chum for the voyage, I hoped. If there were danger for him in the dark, it were well his friend stayed handy by. So, throughout that black watch, I stuck as close as possible to his elbow.
Six bells went when the watch was forward at a job. Suddenly, down the wind, came a dear, musical hail, from aft.
"Ahoy—Mister!"
"B'Gawd, the Old Man's on deck!" ejaculated Lynch to his assistants.
Then he bellowed aft, "Yes, sir?"