"But fairness is fairness," urged Watchett; "there should be a clause in a bet renderin' it void by the act of God or the Queen's enemies."
"There isn't," said his cousin, "and you forget you wouldn't help me about those two hands I wanted."
"Oh, if you talk like that——"
"That's the way I talk," said Ryder, remembering the wife he had left behind him. "I'm sorry."
"Hang your sorrow," said Watchett. "But I'll lose no more, and 'tain't your money yet."
"Will you and Mary come on board to tea?" asked Ryder.
"I won't tea with no unfair person with no sympathy," returned Watchett, savagely.
And when Ryder had gone he set the crowd painting his beautiful white paint a ripe grass-green.
"Watch if it soothes 'em any," he said to Seleucus Thoms. "If it seems to work I'll paint 'er as green as a child's Noah's Ark."
And that night there was no decrease of the Battle-Axe's sad crowd, in spite of the fact that he did not act on his impulse to lock them up in the stuffy fo'c's'le. For soon after midnight Mr. Double felt one side of his face cooler than the other as he stood staring at the motionless lights of the Star of the South, then lying stern on to the Battle-Axe's starboard beam.