“You speak of my duty, sir,” said he.  “I see it—­and do it!”

With that he turned on his heel and walked into the foc’sle.

When he had disappeared something seemed to have gone from the air we breathed, something electric and vitalizing.  There was an immediate let down of the nervous tension that had gripped us, a common sigh, and a half-hysterical snigger from some fellow behind me.  Mister Fitzgibbon seemed to come out of a trance; he shook himself, and stared at Sails and then at Chips.  He glared across the deck at us of the starboard watch.  He even swore.  But there was no life to his curse, and he made no step to follow the defiant stiff into the foc’sle.  Instead, he went to the job at hand, and quite obviously sought to regain mastery and self-respect by sulphuric blustering towards the men bent over the ropes.  He was a defeated man.  He knew it, and we knew it.

A hand fell upon my shoulder.  Newman stood behind me.

“A brave act and a brave man,” said he.  “But they will not let him keep his triumph.”  After a pause he added, “They dare not.”

CHAPTER XIV

I seized Newman’s arm and led him aside, intending to impart my news.  But eight bells struck, and while they were striking, Mister Lynch’s voice summoned the starboard watch to assist in the job the mate had started.  We hurried aft with the crowd, and I found chance to say to him no more than,

“Be careful; someone is spying upon you.  Boston told me—­and I saw him.”

“Who?”

“I couldn’t see.  It was too dark, and he cleared out on the run.  Ask the Nigger.”

When we had belayed, the watch was relieved, and Newman went aft to the wheel.  Lynch kept the rest of us on the jump, as ever, and I had no chance to steal a word with the Nigger when he came forward.  At four bells I relieved the wheel.  I found Captain Swope and the mate pacing the poop with their heads together.  As I took over the wheel, Newman whispered to me, “Keep your weather eye lifted for squalls, Jack!”

I did not need his warning; the mere presence of either of the pair was sufficient to keep any sailorman wide awake and watchful of his p’s and q’s while steering her.  There was nothing uncommon about the Old Man’s presence; he was in the habit of appearing on the poop at all hours of the night, though he never went forward.  But for the mate to give up his sleep in fair weather was unprecedented.  There was something in the carriage and attitude of the two, as they slowly paced fore and aft, or stood at the break staring forward, that gave me a feeling of impending disaster.  Aye, I could smell trouble coming.

Captain Swope could smell it, too.  That is why he walked the deck with Fitzgibbon by his side.  I could feel the alertness of the man.  Yankee Swope had his finger upon the pulse of his ship.  A mutiny, however sudden, would not catch the master of the Golden Bough napping.  That is what I thought as I watched him, and Boston’s vague scheme became harebrained in my eyes.