"So Kipping had a finger in the pie, did he?" said Roger. "Well, Mr. Falk,
what did Kipping say?"
Falk bit his lip sullenly and remained silent.
There really was something pathetic in the man's plight. He had been
ambitious, and ambition alone, which often is a virtue, had gone far to
contribute to his downfall. In many ways he was so weak! A quality that in
other men might have led to almost anything good, in him had bred
resentment and trickery and at last downright crime. He stood there now,
ruined in his profession, the leader of a defeated band of criminals and
vagabonds. Yet if he had succeeded in capturing the ship and putting the
rest of us to death, he could have sailed her home to Salem, and by
spreading his own version of the mutiny have gained great credit, and
probably promotion, for himself.
"Well, Chips," said Roger, "I hope you, at least, are pleased with your
prospects."
The carpenter likewise made no reply.
"Hm, Mr. Cledd, they haven't a great deal to say, have they?"
"Aha," the negro murmured just behind me, "dey's got fine prospec's, dey
has. Dey's gwine dance, dey is, yass, sah, on de end of a rope, and after
dey's done dance a while dey's gwine be leetle che'ubs, dey is, and flap
dey wings and sing sweet on a golden harp.
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