“About seven and a half knots,” I answered.
“Will this wind hold for a long time, long enough for us to make a good many miles toward Patagonia?”
I said I thought it was the trade and would hold for a couple of weeks, when we might expect to run out of it in the latitude of the River Plate.
“Well, Gore,” said he, “you seem to be a capable sort of fellow, and I like you. It isn’t every man I like, now I tell you. If you do the square thing and get us to the southward of the river, not too far, but far enough so we can make a good get-away from the ship, I’ll not forget you.”
“I appreciate my position thoroughly,” I answered, “and also your commendation, but what’s to become of me when we get down to where you want to leave the ship? Do I get a fair show on the beach, or am I expected to stick to the vessel?”
“Well, you will go with me, if you do the right thing. I’m a square man to deal with.”
I have always been suspicious of the man who proclaims his honesty to the world. I never knew a really honest man to say he was square. But this fellow’s tone and manner was so like that of many a shipping merchant I had had dealings with, I almost laughed.
Benson saw the glimmer of my smile in the moonlight and evidently thought me pleased with the prospect, for his tone was even more conciliating as he went on.
“If there’s anything of value in the ship, of value which can be turned into ready money, understand, let me know about it,” he went on. “We will go halves on whatever you can turn to account. There don’t seem to be much that we could take ashore with us except the nautical instruments, and I suppose they would excite suspicion if we tried to sell them.”
“We might bond the ship,” I said, “by taking her into Buenos Ayres, and then make a quick get-away to the southward. If you are a good hand at forgery you might get out some kind of papers that would pass at the custom house long enough for us to get the money and clear out.”