‘You’ll be treated fairly, sir,’ said one of the men, with an air and tone of conciliation. ‘We’ve allowed for you being a gent as’ll be carried away from the parts he wants to git to, Mr. Lush and us men have talked it well over, and the share of the money ye choose to name is the share you shall have for the time and trouble this bit of navigation’ll cost you.’
A murmur of assent followed this speech, several heads nodding so vehemently that their hair danced about their eyes.
‘But, men,’ I cried, turning upon and addressing them in a body, ‘you are surely not going to persuade me that you believe in this yarn of the captain?’
‘Don’t you?’ inquired the carpenter with a sarcastic sneer.
‘It was the imagination of a madman,’ I continued—‘a crazy fancy, men! Surely there is no sailor here but knew that the captain was insane. Did not his actions, his talk, his very looks, prove him mad? And what more convincing proof of his insanity could you desire than the last act of his life?’
Two or three of the fellows grumbled out something, but I did not catch the words. ‘Mad, was he?’ exclaimed the carpenter in a voice of coarse, morose sarcasm; ‘ye didn’t think that when you stood out for a share.’
‘How do you know,’ I cried, ‘that I stood out for a share?’
‘By God, then,’ he roared, ‘we know everything! Did ye or did ye not sign an agreement for a share?’
‘I did,’ I answered, ‘but merely to humour the man’s madness. I should have left the ship at Rio.’
‘There’s no use in talking,’ he exclaimed, smoothing down his voice a trifle; ‘the compact between ye was overheard. Me and the others here was to be got rid of at Rio. Then a crew of Kanakas was to be shipped off the Sandwich Islands. Then, with the gold aboard hidden out of sight, you and him was to ship fresh hands. Mad?’ he cried in an indescribably sneering way; ‘no, no, that worn’t do. Ye didn’t think him mad, then, when you made him provide that if the law laid hold of him for a-running away with his ship, you was to be guaranteed free o’ peril by what you or him tarmed a hinstrument. Ye didn’t think him mad then, and ye don’t think him mad now.’