"Did you hear what the skipper said on board that schooner?" pursued the captain. "Well, I tell you he talked straight. The French have let us alone for a long time; it can't last longer; they've got their eye on us; and as sure as you live, in three weeks you'll be in gaol whatever you do. I read it in the consul's face."
"You forget, captain," said the young man. "There is another way. I can die; and to say truth, I think I should have died three years ago."
The captain folded his arms and looked the other in the face. "Yes," said he, "yes, you can cut your throat; that's a frozen fact; much good may it do you! And where do I come in?"
The light of a strange excitement came in Herrick's face. "Both of us," said he, "both of us together. It's not possible you can enjoy this business. Come," and he reached out a timid hand, "a few strokes in the lagoon--and rest!"
"I tell you, Herrick, I'm 'most tempted to answer you the way the man does in the Bible, and say, '_Get thee behind me, Satan!_'" said the captain. "What! you think I would go drown myself, and I got children starving? Enjoy it? No, by God, I do not enjoy it! but it's the row I've got to hoe, and I'll hoe it till I drop right here. I have three of them, you see, two boys and the one girl, Adar. The trouble is that you are not a parent yourself. I tell you, Herrick, I love you," the man broke out; "I didn't take to you at first, you were so Anglified and tony, but I love you now; it's a man that loves you stands here and wrestles with you. I can't go to sea with the bummer alone; it's not possible. Go drown yourself, and there goes my last chance--the last chance of a poor miserable beast, earning a crust to feed his family. I can't do nothing but sail ships, and I've no papers. And here I get a chance, and you go back on me! Ah, you've no family, and that's where the trouble is!"
"Yes, I know," said the captain, "you think so. But no man's got a family till he's got children. It's only the kids count. There's something about the little shavers ... I can't talk of them. And if you thought a cent about this father that I hear you talk of, or that sweetheart you were writing to this morning, you would feel like me. You would say, What matter laws, and God, and that? My folks are hard up, I belong to them, I'll get them bread, or, by God! I'll get them wealth, if I have to burn down London for it. That's what you would say. And I'll tell you more: your heart is saying so this living minute. I can see it in your face. You're thinking, Here's poor friendship for the man I've starved along of, and as for the girl that I set up to be in love with, here's a mighty limp kind of a love that won't carry me as far as 'most any man would go for a demijohn of whisky. There's not much _ro_mance to that love, anyway; it's not the kind they carry on about in song-books. But what's the good of my carrying on talking, when it's all in your inside as plain as print? I put the question to you once for all. Are you going to desert me in my hour of need?--you know if I've deserted you--or will you give me your hand, and try a fresh deal, and go home (as like as not) a millionaire? Say No, and God pity me! Say Yes, and I'll make the little ones pray for you every night on their bended knees. 'God bless Mr. Herrick:' that's what they'll say, one after the other, the old girl sitting there holding stakes at the foot of the bed, and the damned little innocents ..." he broke off. "I don't often rip out about the kids," he said; "but when I do, there's something fetches loose."