I was on the verge of despair as I saw that Riggs had given up, in spite of my efforts to hearten him.  After the stories he had been telling that very evening about mutinies and wrecks and fights against odds, it seemed unbelievable that he should submit so tamely to Thirkle and his men.  As he sat opposite me on the sea-chest and ate mechanically of the broken bits of biscuits, I observed him closely, and it seemed that he had aged twenty years in the last few hours.

His hair seemed whiter, his face grayer, the lines in his cheeks and forehead deeper, and his chin and jaw had lost their firm set which proved him a commander of men.  As I considered all these things and saw the pity of it I forgot his age and was angered.  I was bound to make him do something—­put my youth and strength and hopefulness and fighting spirit with his experience and knowledge of ships and find a way out.

I determined to make him do something, anything, rather than mope and whine, even if I had to threaten him with his own pistol, which I had taken from him without so much as asking him for it.  He didn’t want it, anyway.

“Now, Captain Riggs,” I began, “I know you have been a fighter all your life, and I know you can suggest something better than—­”

“That’s right,” he broke in, raising his hand to stop me.  “I’ve lived too long, and my fighting days are over.  My years have come upon me all at once, and they are a burden—­too much of a burden to bear and fight, too.  I am weary from fighting.  I’m older than I thought I was.  I have been in these waters too long, and these latitudes take the mettle out of a man when he has reached my age.

“I never felt it as I do now, and I guess the owners knew it, and that’s why I didn’t get one of their new boats.  But this ain’t my fault, Mr. Trenholm.  Don’t you see it ain’t my fault?  I should have known what was aboard, and then I could have been prepared.  As it is, this thing is too big for me now, and I’m ready to strike my colours.  It’s my honour that frets me now.”

“Your honour!  It wouldn’t be the first ship that’s been lost, captain, even if it is the first one you have lost, and—­”

“I know what you are thinking of, boy.  You think I’m afraid.  Well, I’m ready to die—­that’s nothing.  If I thought I could save you and Rajah here, I’d do it—­it is my duty.  I’ve been in harder places than this, and I was a hard man to handle; and I’ve had my battles and mutinies and worse, some of ’em before ye were born, lad.  They all weigh me down now, and it’s not what’s ahead of me that’s fretting me now; but what’s after me—­the things they’ll say, some of ’em who don’t know me well.  Don’t you see, they’ll think I made off with the gold?”

I hadn’t considered the case in that light; but now I saw that he was worrying of what would be said, while I was thinking only of my life—­he considered that he would lose life and honour; and, as he still had his New England conscience, honour weighed deeper in his scales.  I felt ashamed that I had planned to make his last hours harder.