Few watches in my life stand out so sharply in my memory.  And it was not the near tragedy that concluded it that so impressed my mind; it was the sailing.  For Lynch was cracking on, and there was no faint-hearted skipper interfering with his game.  Indeed, had Swope been on deck before the hour when he did come up, I do not think he would have protested.  This reckless sailing was what made half the fame of the Golden Bough.  It was said that Yankee Swope sailed around Cape Stiff with padlocks on his topsail sheets!  And this night we showed the gale the full spread of her three t’gan’s’ls, and the ship raced before the wind like a frightened stag.

Oh, I had seen sailing before.  I had been in smart ships, had run my Easting down in southern waters more than once, had made the eastern passage of the Western Ocean with the winter storm on my back the whole distance.  But this night was my introduction to the clipper style, where the officers banked fifty per cent on their seamanship, to avert disaster, and fifty per cent on blind chance that the top hamper would stand the strain.  An incautious system?  Aye, but cautious men did not sail those ships.

It was so dark we had to feel our way about the decks.  I could not see the upper canvas, but I could imagine it standing out like curved sheet iron.  Every moment I expected to hear the explosion of rent canvas, or the rattle of falling gear on the deck.  Not I alone thought so, for once when Chips and Sails went to windward of me, I heard Sails bawl to his companion,

“He’ll have the spars about our ears before the hour is out!”

“Not he,” responded Chips.  “Trust Lynch and his luck!”

True enough.  The hour passed, and another, and Lynch still carried on without mishap.  Indeed, the wind had moderated a bit.

Throughout the watch I kept close by Newman’s side.  That warning, to look behind me in the dark, had by no means escaped my mind.  When we came on deck, Newman said to me, “A good night for a bad job, Jack!  Keep your eyes open!” Small advice on such a night, when a man could not have seen his own mother, stood she two feet distant!

That warning had puzzled me, and I did not dare question Newman concerning it.  He was not the kind of man one could question.  But what was likely to lurk in the dark?  “Death,” said he.  Did that mean he feared a stealthy assassination, a knife thrust from the dark?  Did he think that Captain Swope was planning the cold-blooded murder of an able seaman?

There was the question.  In one way, it opposed my reason.  Of course, this was a hell-ship, and murder might very well take place on board.  But that the captain should deliberately plot the removal of a foc’sle hand!  Able seamen were not of such importance in a hell-ship.