reason" and he was not averse at
a pinch to--but here were white people--gentlemen, ladies, not to speak
of the crew. He had never spoken to a superior like this before,
and this was prudence, his conviction, a point of view, a point of
principle, a conscious superiority and a burst of resentment hoarded
through years against all the successive and unsatisfactory captains of
his existence. There never had been such an opportunity to show he could
not be put upon. He had one of them on a string and he was going to lead
him a dance. There was courage, too, in it, since he believed himself
fallen unawares into the clutches of a particularly desperate man and
beyond the reach of law.

A certain small amount of calculation entered the audacity of his
remonstrance. Perhaps--it flashed upon him--the yacht's gentry will hear
I stood up for them. This could conceivably be of advantage to a man
who wanted a lift in the world. "Owner of a yacht--badly scared--a
gentleman--money nothing to him." Thereupon Shaw declared with heat that
he couldn't be an accessory either after or before the fact. Those
that never went home--who had nothing to go to perhaps--he interjected,
hurriedly, could do as they liked. He couldn't. He had a wife, a
family, a little house--paid for--with difficulty. He followed the sea
respectably out and home, all regular, not vagabonding here and there,
chumming with the first nigger that came along and laying traps for his
betters.

One of the two flare bearers sighed at his elbow, and shifted his weight
to the other foot.

These two had been keeping so perfectly still that the movement was
as startling as if a statue had changed its pose. After looking at the
offender with cold malevolence, Shaw went on to speak of law-courts,
of trials, and of the liberty of the subject; then he pointed out the
certitude and the inconvenience of being found out, affecting for the
moment the dispassionateness of wisdom.

"There will be fifteen years in gaol at the end of this job for
everybody," said Shaw, "and I have a boy that don't know his father yet.
Fine things for him to learn when he grows up. The innocent are dead
certain here to catch it along with you. The missus will break her heart
unless she starves first. Home sold up."

He saw a mysterious iniquity in a dangerous relation to himself and
began to lose his head. What he really wanted was to have his
existence left intact, for his own cherishing and pride. I