There came an ominous flapping of canvas aloft.  “He done gib her too much wheel!” said the mulatto to me.  “Lawd help him!”

The black-bearded man who had been lounging over the poop rail watching us work, and at whom I had been casting curious and fearful glances as I rushed about beneath his arctic glare, now swung about and damned the helmsman’s eye with soft voiced, deadly words.  The mates’ voices dropped low, and we listened to Yankee Swope’s storm of venomous curses with bated breath.

As a man curses so he is.  I learned that truth that morning, a truth amply tested by the days that came after.  It was like a book page before my eyes, revealing the different characters of the three men who ruled our world, by comparison of their oaths.

Now Lynch swore robustious oaths in a hearty voice.  They enlivened your legs and arms, for you sensed there was a blow behind the words if you lagged.  But they did not rasp your soul.  You knew there was no personal application to them.  They were the oaths of a bluff, hard man who would drive you mercilessly, but who would none the less respect your manhood.  They were the oaths of the boss to the man, and they bespoke force.

Fitzgibbon’s swearing always sounded dirty.  His curses fell about you like a vile shower, and aroused your hot resentment; the same words that came clean from Lynch’s lips, sounded vile from Fitzgibbon, because the man, himself, was bad through and through.  His oaths were the oaths of a slave-driver to the slave, and they bespoke cruelty.

But the curses of Captain Swope!  God keep me from ever hearing their like again.  They sounded worse than harsh, or vile, they sounded inhuman.  The words came soft and melodious from his lips, but they were forked with poison and viciousness.  As we of the foc’sle listened to him curse the helmsman, that first morning out, each man felt fear’s icy finger touch the pit of his stomach.  The captain’s words horrified us, they sounded so utterly evil, and foretold so plainly the suffering that was to come to us.

He suddenly cut short his cursing, and turning, caught sight of us, men and mates, standing idle by the main fife rail.  “What’s this, Misters?” he sang out.  “Going asleep on the job?  Rush those dogs—­rush them!  And send a man aft to the wheel—­a sailorman!  This damned Dutchman does not know how to steer!”

Those evenly spoken words aroused us to a very frenzy of effort.  Fitzgibbon struck out blindly at the man nearest him, and commenced to curse us in a steady stream.  Lynch reached out and dragged me away from the line on which I was heaving.  “Aft with you!” he ordered me.  “Take the wheel—­lively, now!”

Lively it was.  I ran along the lee deck towards the poop, my belly griped by the knowledge that the black-bearded man was watching my progress.  Nineteen-year-old man I might be, able seaman and hard case, but I’ll admit I was afraid.  I was afraid of that sinister figure on the poop, afraid of the soft voice that cursed so horribly.