ge passion, some with cold brutality--between Sandy Hook and San
Francisco, the police were despatched in time to be too late. Before we
arrived the ruffian had slipped out upon the dock, and mingled with the
crowd, and found a refuge in the house of an acquaintance; and the ship
was only tenanted by his late victims. Well for him that he had been
thus speedy; for when word began to go abroad among the shore-side
characters, when the last victim was carried by to the hospital, when
those who had escaped (as by miracle) from that floating shambles began
to circulate and show their wounds in the crowd, it was strange to
witness the agitation that seized and shook that portion of the city.
Men shed tears in public; bosses of lodging-houses, long inured to
brutality,--and above all, brutality to sailors--shook their fists at
heaven. If hands could have been laid on the captain of the _Gleaner_,
his shrift would have been short. That night (so gossip reports) he was
headed up in a barrel and smuggled across the bay. In two ships already
he had braved the penitentiary and the gallows; and yet, by last
accounts, he now commands another on the Western Ocean.

As I have said, I was never quite certain whether Mr. Nares (the mate)
did not intend that his superior should escape. It would have been like
his preference of loyalty to law; it would have been like his
prejudice, which was all in favour of the after-guard. But it must
remain a matter of conjecture only. Well as I came to know him in the
sequel, he was never communicative on that point--nor, indeed, on any
that concerned the voyage of the _Gleaner_. Doubtless he had some reason
for his reticence. Even during our walk to the police office he debated
several times with Johnson, the third officer, whether he ought not to
give up himself, as well as to denounce the captain. He had decided in
the negative, arguing that "it would probably come to nothing; and even
if there was a stink, he had plenty good friends in San Francisco." And
to nothing it came; though it must have very nearly come to something,
for Mr. Nares disappeared immediately from view, and was scarce less
closely hidden than his captain.

Johnson, on the other hand, I often met. I could never learn this man's
country; and though he himself claimed to be American, neither his
English nor his education warranted the claim. In all likelihood he was
of Scandinavian birth and blood, long pickled in the forecastles