To be
sure, the transgressions of the carpenter and the steward were only petty
as yet, and if no worse came of our new situation, I should be very foolish
to take it all so seriously. But it was not easy to regard our situation
lightly. There were too many straws to show the direction of the wind.
CHAPTER X
THE TREASURE-SEEKER
It was a starlit night while we still lingered off the coast of Sumatra for
water and fresh vegetables. The land was low and black against the steely
green of the sky, and a young moon like a silver thread shone in the west.
Blodgett, the new man in our watch, was the centre of a little group on the
forecastle.
He was small and wrinkled and very wise. The more I saw and heard of him,
the more I marveled that he had not attracted my attention before; but up
to this point in the voyage it was only by night that he had appeared
different from other men, and I thought of him only as a prowler in the
dark.
In some ways he was like a cat. By day he would sit in corners in the sun
when opportunity offered, or lurk around the galley, shirking so brazenly,
that the men were amused rather than angry. Even at work he was as slow and
drowsy as an old cat, half opening his sleepy eyes when the officers called
him to account, and receiving an occasional kick or cuff with the same mild
surprise that a favorite cat might show.
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