“But is that true? Take this Central America. It is true that we, the Fruit Company, have a monopoly of the banana importing business. But what was Central America before we came? Where miles on miles of bananas grow there was wilderness. Where naked half-savage people hunted deer and wild pigs, or sucked the milk from cocoanuts, there now lives a happy, reasonably prosperous and contented people. Who changed it all? Did not the Fruit Company do it?
“I suppose,” he said after a moment, “that our young friend, this Johnny Thompson who has somehow stolen a march on us and gotten hold of a cargo of fruit, thinks he’s a young hero, a benefactor to mankind. I wonder if he is right.”
“I wonder,” rumbled Kennedy.
Time had been when Kennedy would have engaged this rich man of the world in sharp debate. He was old now. He had learned the futility of debate. Besides, he was greatly interested in the approaching storm.
At midnight Johnny Thompson found himself wrapped in a blanket and lying upon a plank, endeavoring in vain to snatch a few winks of sleep.
He found himself now standing almost upright on his feet and now tilted in the other direction until his very pockets seemed about to turn wrongside out.
“Some storm!” he muttered.
Canvas boomed above him. The seamen had stretched a canvas over the hatch to keep out the spray. He was lying on that part of the hatch that had not been uncovered. Having given up his stateroom to the Unwilling Guest, he had been obliged to take a bunk below. During such a storm as they were now weathering, the air below was not to be endured.
Unable to sleep, he allowed his mind to wander. Had they indeed missed the heart of the storm, or were they in it now? How was the storm to end? He thought of the black rolling waves, and shuddered.
“If we weather the storm safely, what then? Will we come to dock safely in New York? Will we be able to sell our cargo? Or will we once more face defeat? And what of the Arion?”