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Updated: May 9, 2025
Was he, or was he not, a coroner all the time? Mr. Whidden stroked an isolated tuft of hair growing low on the middle of his forehead, and glared mildly at Mr. Perkins. "Young Shackford has gone to New York, I understand," said Mr. Ward, breaking the silence. Mr. Perkins nodded. "Went this morning to look after the real-estate interests there.
Captain Whidden had been a gentleman and a first-class sailor; by ordering our life strictly, though not harshly or severely, he had maintained that efficient, smoothly working organization which is best and pleasantest for all concerned. But Captain Falk was a master whose sails were cut on another pattern. He lacked Captain Whidden's straightforward, searching gaze.
To Falk he replied clearly, "You black-hearted villain, if you show your face in a Christian port you'll go to the gallows for abetting the cold-blooded murder of an able officer and an honorable gentleman, Captain Joseph Whidden. Quid that over a while and stow your tales of piracy and mutiny. Back water, you! Keep off!" Here was no subtle insinuation.
It is more important that you hold your peace than you may ever realize than, I trust, you ever will realize. I am going to ask you to give me your word of honor to that effect." It seemed to me then that I saw Captain Whidden in a new light.
The steward, when I appeared, raised his eyebrows and almost dropped his tray; then he paused in the door, inconspicuously, as if to linger. But Captain Whidden glanced round and dismissed him by a sharp nod, and I found myself alone in the cabin with the captain, Mr. Thomas, and Roger Hamlin. "I understand there's news forward, Lathrop," said Captain Whidden.
"The owners' orders in that respect were secret. They were issued to Captain Whidden and to me, and Captain Falk refuses to accept my version of them." "And you?" Roger smiled and looked me hard in the eye. "I am going to see that they are carried out," he said. "The Websters would be grievously disappointed if this commission were not discharged.
I felt as if suddenly, in spite of my minor importance on board his ship, I had come closer to the straightforward gentleman, the true Joseph Whidden, than in all the years that I had known him, almost intimately, it had seemed at the time, in my father's house. "I promise, sir," I said. He took up a pencil and with the point tapped a piece of paper.
There's money enough in gold mohurs and rupees to buy the Bank of England." It was a cock-and-bull story that the little old man told us; but, absurd though it was, he had an air of impressive sincerity; and although every one of us would have laughed the yarn out of meeting had it been told of Captain Whidden, affairs had changed in the last days aboard ship.
"Bless my soul! What's happened? Where's Captain Whidden? Bless my soul! Who are you?" The speaker was big, well dressed, comfortably well fed. He stared at the six of us sprawled out grotesquely on the deck, where we had thrown ourselves when the ship swung at her anchor. He looked up at the loose, half-furled sails. He turned to Roger, who stood gaunt and silent before him. "Bless my soul!
To me, a boy still in his 'teens, that first intimate association with violent death would have been in itself terrible, and I keenly felt the loss of our chief mate. But Captain Whidden to me was far more than master of the ship.
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