"If they had come," said Thripp savagely, "I should have said something or bust."
"Better to bust, I suppose," replied the skipper, "though I own that if I knew they was comin' with us I should be tempted to say a lot that's now boilin' inside me. I wish they was, I own it. I own it freely, even if I got the sack."
He relapsed on the ship's papers, and Thripp went out to attend to the duties of a conscientious mate on the eve of going to sea. He passed a telegraph boy on the main-deck and directed the lad to the captain's cabin. Destiny in a uniform thanked him and whistled. When he had found the skipper and old Jordan had read the message he was the one who whistled. But he did not do so from want of thought by any means. He looked as savage as a trapped weasel, and as black as a nigger on a dark night.
"Well, I'm damned," said Jordan, "so they are goin' to do it after all! And I don't know that I wish it now!"
He whistled again and rang the bell for the steward, who was another of the firm's cheap bargains. He had been in prison, in company with a former captain of his, for disposing of stores in foreign parts and feeding the crew on
