, "you are mate of this vessel. Your
duty is to see that my orders as to sailing are carried out. Beyond that
you do not go. As to navigation, and latitude and longitude and where the
hell we are, that is outside your line of duty. As to where we are bound,
you are getting double wages not to get too damn curious. Remember to
earn your wages, Mr. Eagen!"

He turned away to the binnacle. In spite of his personal filth, in spite
of the lawless, almost piratical, character of the man, in that moment I
could not but admire him. If Percy Darrow was ignorant of the purposes of
this expedition, how much more so Captain Selover. Yet he accepted his
trust blindly, and as far as I could then see, intended to fulfil it
faithfully. I liked him none the worse for snubbing me. It indicated a
streak in his moral nature akin to and quite as curious as his excessive
neatness regarding his immediate surroundings.

IV

THE STEEL CLAW

During the next few days the crew discussed our destination. Discipline,
while maintained strictly, was not conventional. During the dog watches,
often, every man aboard would be below, for at that period Captain
Selover loved to take the wheel in person, a thick cigar between his
lips, the dingy checked shirt wide open to expose his hairy chest to the
breeze. In the twilight of the forecastle we had some great sea-lawyer's
talks--I say "We," though I took little part in them. Generally I lay
across my bunk smoking my pipe while Handy Solomon held forth, his speech
punctuated by surly speculations from the Nigger, with hesitating
deep-sea wisdom from the hairy Thrackles, or with voluminous bursts of
fractured English from Perdosa. Pulz had nothing to offer, but watched
from his pale green eyes. The light shifted and wavered from one to the
other as the ship swayed: garments swung; the empty berths yawned
cavernous. I could imagine the forecastle filled with the desperate men
who had beaten off the _Oyama_. The story is told that they had
swept the gunboat's decks with her own rapid-fires, turned in.

No one knew where we were going, nor why. The doctor puzzled them, and
the quantity of his belongings.

"It ain't pearls," said Handy Solomon. "You can kiss the Book on that,
for we ain't a diver among us. It ain't Chinks, for we are cruising
sou'-sou'-west. Likely it's trade,--trade down in the Islands."

We were all below. The captain himself had the wheel. Discipline, while
strict, was not con