All that he had been and all that he had done, if man were only
something more than man, if devil's luck and devil's power would come to
his whistle, if the seed of his nature could defy the iron stricture of
the flesh, reaching its height, shooting up into a terrible
upas-tree--so for the moment Baldry saw himself. Into his voice came a
deep and sonorous note, his black eyes glowed; he began to gesture with
his hand, stately as a Spaniard. And then, chancing to glance towards
the head of the board, he met the eyes of the man who sat there, his
Captain now, whom he must follow! What might he read in their depths?
Half-scornful amusement, perhaps, and the contempt of the man who has
done what man may do for the yoke-fellow who habitually made claim to
supernatural prowess; in addition to the scholar's condemnation of
blatant ignorance, the courtier's dislike of unmannerliness, the
soldier's scorn of unproved deeds, athwart all the philosophic smile!
Baldry, flushing darkly, hated with all his wild might, for that he
chose to hate, the man who sat so quietly there, who held with so much
ease the knowledge that by right of much beside his commission he was
leader of every man within those floating walls. The Captain of the
_Star_ struck the table with his hand.

"Ah, I had good help that time! My brother sailed with me--Thomas
Baldry, that was master of the _Speedwell_ that went down at Fayal in
the Azores.... Didst ever see a ghost, Sir Mortimer Ferne?"

"No," answered Ferne, curtly.

"Then the dead come not to haunt us," said Baldry. "I would have sworn a
many had passed before your eyes. Now had I been Thomas Baldry I would
have won back."