“Well, the first day off soundings there was another fracas, and Moll came forward with a can of condensed milk in one hand and a bunch of keys in the other. She gave me a leer and waved the can of milk, and I knew we were to live high that voyage. I hadn’t tasted the stuff for nigh two years.
“One day there was another scuffle below, and a bottle of liquor sailed up the companion-way and smashed against the binnacle. There were all kinds of noises after that, but I finally made out Moll’s voice bawling, ‘Not another drap, sir! Not another drap!’
“He was a sober man for two years until she left, and after Fane heard of her death he wasn’t the same man. She really did more good than many a better brought-up woman on the beach, and if he called her an angel it’s nothing to laugh at, though her wings may have looked more like the little winged animals that fly o’ night among the mosquitoes in the harbor than like doves.
“So you see there’s no use going against the wimmen, for there’s lots of good in them, only it takes strange circumstances at times to bring it out.
“After all, I don’t blame Gantline. And between us I’ll tell you why.”
Here Mr. Enlis looked sharply fore and aft to see if anybody might interrupt us, and then spoke in a low voice.
“He married a girl years ago, and one day he came home and found her missing. She had run off with a fellow named Jones, who was once mate with Crojack.
“He followed that fellow all over the world. That hole in his cheek is where Jones’s bullet went through when they met once on the streets in Calcutta. Jones got several bad cuts before they were separated. A year or two after this they met again, and Gantline has had that list in his walk ever since. You see, virtue and right don’t always come out winners on deep-water, unless the virtue lies in the heft of your hand. That mate Jones was a big man, and they used to say he was a powerful hand for putting a crew through a course of study to find out who’s who and what’s what. According to report they generally found Bill Jones was something of both, and I heard that one voyage there wasn’t enough belaying-pins left aboard to clew down the topsails on, so they left them flying and put over the side for it as soon as the hook took the ground.
“But what I am coming to is this: Gantline was second mate with that same fellow Hollender the voyage one of his men sent his black soul to hell. The mate was killed and Gantline was left in command.
“To the eastward of Juan Fernandez he picked up a boat adrift with one man in it. He was alive and that was all. Gantline stood by while they lifted the fellow on deck, and as he caught sight of his sun-blackened face with the dry lips cracking over the black gums he gave a start and swore horribly. Then he walked fore and aft on the poop, and they say he chewed up nigh two pounds of tobacco during the rest of the day. When the fellow’s mouth was wet enough to speak with, he raved and cried, ‘Saved at last! Saved at last!’ until they had to lash him in his bunk. Sometimes he would call out a girl’s name, and Gantline would rush forward onto the forecastle-head and storm at the men working on deck.