“I’m a poor lad, master. What comes, comes to the likes of me. When the captain died I lost my friend;” and grasping his fingers he cracked his joints one after another, yielding first on one leg and then on the other, as though he was about to break into a main-deck double shuffle.
“Did Captain Greaves ever promise you a share?”
“No, master.”
“But you have a claim, and he was not the man to have overlooked it. D’ye remember Galloon?”
“Remember him, master? Remember Galloon?” said he, lowering his voice.
“Galloon was an honest dog. Had he been able to speak, his advice to you would always have been ‘Jimmy, be honest.’”
He looked somewhat wild and scared, as though he imagined I was going to charge him with a wrong.
“It’ll be a wicked act to cast this fine brig away, don’t you think? Galloon wouldn’t have loved ye for helping in such a job.”
“It’ll be no job of mine, master.”
“Both Galloon and Captain Greaves,” said I, “would have wished you to be on the right side, no matter whose side it might happen to be. Are you on the right side or the wrong side? Are you on the side where home lies, where a share of the dollars lies, where safety lies; or are you on the side where New Holland lies, where there are no dollars for you, where there’s no home for you, and where you may be finding a gibbet as one who helped to cast a ship away?—if the men don’t first chuck you overboard as being in the road.”