and their food and the officers grow irritable. There are few stories worth
telling in the drudgery of life at sea, but now and then in a long, long
time fate and coincidence conspire to unite in a single voyage, such as
that which I am chronicling, enough plots and crimes and untoward incidents
to season a dozen ordinary lifetimes spent before the mast.

I could not, of course, even begin as yet to comprehend the magnitude that
the tiny whirlpool of discontented and lawless schemers would attain. But
boy though I was, in those first months of the voyage I had learned
enough about the different members of the crew to realize that serious
consequences might grow from such a clique.

Kipping, whom I had thought at first a mild, harmless man, had proved
himself a vengeful bully, cowardly in a sense, yet apparently courageous
enough so far as physical combat was concerned. Also, he had disclosed an
unexpected subtlety, a cat-like craft in eavesdropping and underhanded
contrivances. The steward I believed a mercenary soul, tricky so far as his
own comfort and gain were concerned, who, according to common report, had
ingratiated himself with the second mate by sympathizing with him on every
occasion because he had not been given the chief mate's berth. The two men
from Boston I cared even less for; they were slipshod workmen and
ill-tempered, and their bearing convinced me that, from the point of view
of our officers and of the owners of the ship, they were a most undesirable
addition to such a coterie as Kipping seemed to be forming. Davie Paine and
the carpenter prided themselves on being always affable, and each, although
slow to make up his mind, would throw himself heart and body into whatever
course of action he finally decided on. But significant above all else was
Kipping's familiarity with Mr. Falk.

The question now was, how to communicate my suspicions secretly to Roger