"But what of McGavock's wife? There was a woman, Tommy."
"She wasn't aboard. Seems poor McGavock lost his wife—died at sea with her little baby, away out to the westward there, a couple of years ago. He kept brooding over it—kept the wife's things aboard just as she'd left them. I saw the little ferns down there under the skylights yesterday evening. Seems that after crossing the line this voyage McGavock got it into his head to make the position where he'd buried the little woman. He had it marked on the chart with a little red cross. The mutineers stole the chart and they thought the red cross stood for an island. God knows why McGavock steered out there. Maybe he never intended to come away.
"The Jap committed suicide at Midway, but he told the whole story before he went out and we have the rest of it from the other swine. The whole outfit's aboard my ship. Something of the poetry of justice in that, eh? A British cruiser's waiting to take them aboard as soon as we get in. Had her by wireless yesterday.
"But, Paul, it's you I want to talk about—and I'll not answer another question till I have my say. When the news of the Cambodia's loss and what you'd done aboard of her went flashing round the world it set the old navy gang's hearts up. But it did more than that. It reached into the conscience of that fellow Graham. He was on his last legs in a hospital in San Francisco. He'd never had a ship since he'd lost the Yakutat—just a beachcomber and a bum. A man can't do a dirty thing and stand up afterward. That's as sure as shooting. Well, with his last breath, Graham tells the truth about the night the Yakutat was lost; said if he'd done what you advised him to do the ship would never have piled up. He took back every lie he uttered on the witness stand—admitted that he'd ordered you to the boats. He even told how he looked down from the bridge and saw you fighting like a tiger to get women and children into the boats. The San Francisco papers—we picked 'em up at Honolulu—are full of it. Miss Granville has a lot of them.
"Lord, man——Why, Paul, you damned old pirate you! The fleet's been collecting a fund—one of the newspapers that roasted you the worst is backing it—to build you a memorial. Something in bronze. But it isn't going to be bronze. It's going to be silver—the damnedest, finest wedding gift a real man ever got."
Winterton's voice was husky with emotion. His big brown eyes were suspiciously misty. He had to stop.
"Farallones are abeam, sir," reported Yates, who was in temporary command of the Daphne, coming to the door.
"Must be getting back to my own ship, Paul. Regulations, you know. But I'll be aboard of you as soon as we get our mudhooks down."
"Carpenter's mate reports, sir," interrupted the ensign, "that the fire in the forehold is extinguished."
"See that!" exclaimed Winterton. "You beat that, too, you old beggar, even though you did come near blowing yourself to Kingdom Come!"