“THINK HOW MANY WE ARE!—­THINK WHAT WE COULD DO! It isn’t either that we haven’t intelligence—­if only we were to use it.  We don’t lack leaders—­we don’t lack courage—­we don’t lack martyrs; All are ready—­”

I stopped reading.

“Why don’t you start then?” I asked.

“We have a considerable organisation,” he answered.

“You have?” I said.  “Why don’t you use it then?”

“We’re waiting for Jamaica,” he answered; “she’s almost ready.”

“It sounds a pretty good idea to me,” I remarked, “from your point of view.  ‘From your point of view,’ remember, I said; but you mustn’t think that yours is mine—­not for one moment—­O dear no!  On the contrary, my point of view is that of the Governor of Nassau, or his representative, quite near by, at Harbour Island, isn’t it?”

My pock-marked friend grew a trifle green as I said this.

“We have sails still, remember,” I resumed.  “George and the lost gasolene are not everything.  Five hours, with anything of a wind, would bring us to Harbour Island, and—­with this paper in my hand it would be—­what do you think yourself?—­the gallows?”

My friend grew grave at that, and seemed to be thinking hard inside, making resolutions the full force of which I didn’t understand till later, but the immediate result of which was a graciousness of manner which did not entirely deceive me.

“O” he said, “I don’t think you quite mean that.  You’re impulsive—­as when you hit that poor boy down there—­”

“Well,” I observed, “I’m willing to treat you better than you deserve.  At the same time, you must admit that your manifesto, as I suppose you would call it, is justified neither by conditions nor by your own best sense.  You yourself are far more English than you are anything else—­you know it; you know how hard it is for white men to live with black men, and—­to tell the truth—­all they do for them.  The mere smell of negroes is no more pleasant to you than it is to many other white men.  Englishmen have exiled themselves, for absurdly small salaries, to try to make life finer and cleaner for those dark—­and, I’ll admit, pathetic—­barbarians.  You can’t deny it.  And you’ve too much sense to deny it.  So, I’ll say nothing about this, if you like” (pointing to the manuscript), “and if the wind holds, put you ashore to-morrow at Spanish Wells.  I like you in spite of myself.  Is it a bargain?”

On this we parted, and, as I thought, with a certain friendliness on both sides.

There was no sailing wind, so there was nothing to do but stay where we were all day.  The boys fished and lay around; and I spent most of the time in my cabin, reading a novel, and, soon after nine, I fell asleep in a frame of mind unaccountably trustful.

I suppose that I had been asleep about three hours when I was disturbed by a tremendous roar.  It was Sailor (who always slept near me) out on the cockpit with a man under his paws—­his jaws at the man’s throat.  I called him off, and saw that it was my pock-marked friend, with his right hand extended in the cockpit and a revolver a few inches away from it.  So far as I knew it was the only firearm on the ship.  “Let’s get hold of that first, Sailor,” I said, and I slipped it into my hip pocket.