CHAPTER XXVI
From the point where the swordfish killed the whale we laid a course southwesterly to the westward of Réunion. We had the southeast trades all the way, and did not touch a brace until we were between Réunion and Madagascar. There the trades left us, and we laid a southerly course, with shifting winds. We were getting into the “horse latitudes,” and the wind was generally strong, at first from the east and northeast; still farther south it held usually from the westward, stronger yet, and gales were frequent.
I had taken an unreasoning dislike to Smith. I could not account for it, and I do not remember that I tried to. It was much like that of a dog, and may have been due to the same cause. His outward behavior was unexceptionable. He was always pleasant, properly deferential to the officers, with due regard to each man’s taste in degree and kind of deference. He was a diplomat. Even to Mr. Brown his manner was perfect: silent, brief when words were needed, quite respectful and pleasant. I think that Mr. Brown was wondering whether he had done Smith entire justice. But the men were less alive and willing. Nobody could help seeing it, although few would have ascribed the change to Smith.
One day, when we were off the southern end of Madagascar, Peter spoke to me of it.
“It ’s that Smith,” he said. “It ’s his doing.”
“Why don’t you report it to the old man?” I asked. “Or tell one of the officers—Mr. Brown, if you like.”
“What ’d I report?” he said. “Smith has n’t said anything or done anything. They ’d ask me what, and I ’d say he laughed at the men, and they ’d laugh at me—and I ’d fall off the topsail yardarm, with a knife in my back, as like as not, in one o’ these gales we ’ll be running into. And what good ’d that do to anybody?”
“Does Smith carry a knife?” I asked quickly.
“I ’ve never seen it; and he ’s one of the pleasantest-spoken men I ever saw—always at my elbow when I ’m at my scrimshawing, admiring. But he ’s a trouble-maker. He ’ll have the men ready for mutiny, the first thing you know, with his laughing at them, and making fun of them, and despising them for doing what they have to do. There ain’t anything else will do it so quick or so sure. And there ain’t anything he says or does ’t you can put your finger on. I ’ve been to sea a good many years, and I know a beach-comber when I see one—full of all kinds of hard drink that would burn out the insides of a better man, and filled with disease and evil. Smith must have been a good man to stand it so long—and come out no worse.”
At that moment Smith passed us, and Peter began to talk of something else.