I said I thought it was.
“Well, then, we must take what we can get and not take too much trouble asking about the ownership. You get your share, you see, and I expect you to give a good account of yourself in a fracas. You’re a stocky built fellow and put up a good fight the day we took you. Now you must show what you can do taking the other fellow in turn.”
“I see,” I said, “I reckon I’ll do my share.”
“If it wasn’t for the risk, I would like to keep cruising along indefinitely,” said Benson. “Life is very pleasant aboard a fine ship, especially when one has a wife and good crew.”
I would have jumped him then and there if Johnson had not come up at the moment. I turned my face to windward and gazed out over the ocean sparkling in the moonlight, and wondered how I managed to control myself. The grim horror of the ship passing along over that sparkling sea like some great black spectre in the night was almost unbearable. Like a great, black, ghostly shadow she slid along over the smooth sea, not a light burning aboard her and her crew of villains resting easily in the warm air. I tried to keep my thoughts from Benson and his deviltries, and wondered if there really were an intelligent power governing the universe, and if so, why these things could happen. And yet I knew they were happening elsewhere continually and it was the part of man to bear them as best he might.
CHAPTER XVIII.
I drilled enough active men aside from the men of the Arrow, and divided them into watches for a crew; so I managed to keep canvas on the ship and get about all there was out of her in regard to speed. The weather was perfect, and there was no call to do much else than steer and tend the braces. A few of the convicts had been to sea before, and these I used for work aloft. As soon as Brown’s leg was well enough to allow him to stand on deck he relieved me as far as attending to the steering.
I worked out the ship’s position every day at noon, and Benson would pick it off carefully on a chart pinned to the cabin table. But we were never alone together a moment. The four men who acted as Benson’s lieutenants were always at hand, and the heavy-set short villain, Johnson, was always on deck when his master was below.
Brown and I seldom had a chance to speak to each other. A score of eyes were upon us all the time when we were on deck, on the lookout for any act of treachery. I could see by Brown’s look of inquiry that he was trusting to my knowledge of seamanship to get us out of the difficulty. Once he came near me and asked: “What’s the chance?” But that heavy-set devil, Johnson, saw him speak to me, though he couldn’t hear what was said, and he came up to us with a string of oaths and ordered Brown forward.
I don’t think I slept more than a few hours during the first days of that cruise. At times my blood would rush to my head and I would find that I could stand it no longer. A dozen times I started up from my bunk and made ready for the end. I had no weapon except a sailor’s sheath-knife, but I knew that if I once could get within reach of Benson nothing could save his life. But I knew that if I killed him it would leave the girl to the mercy of the common crowd. This thought would make me so weak at times that the sweat would run down my face and neck, and I would get so dizzy that I could scarcely stand. I was as near being crazy as a sane man could possibly get.