human
We're in for a calm.
gpt
Hope I may spend some of my trick aloft.
human
Ay--stinks, don't it? And Ledyard startled Ben exceedingly by adding:
gpt
Like a dead man's dream it is. A fair hope gone rotten.
human
Maybe it'll be as bad at the masthead. This morning I believe we could stink out Father Neptune himself. Is no one aloft?
gpt
I was. Captain called me down. Seems dem'd foolish even to him to keep a lookout now--if we're becalmed so's everything else that might be about. He glanced aft and continued, a murmur in his smallest voice:
human
Cory, him and Mr. Ball was just now speaking of breaking out the boat and towing her. Understand that? Take at least six men at the oars to move her. Six men in a boat, in this sun, nothing to their bellies but p'ison stew or salt cod.... Step further away from the hatch, will you? He lounged away to the bow, and Ben followed him as casually as he might, noticing how, with no way on her at all, the Diana had at some time since the wind died turned completely about, her lifeless bow pointing homeward to the north. Ben stood with the blaze of the morning sun behind him and watched the fire of it on the battlefield of Ledyard's face.
gpt
You might say, Cory, if so be he wants to kill all us mis'able scrannel hands, us buggerly rascals, that's what he'll do. Just get us out there at the oars in the sun, to tow the old bitch, that's all it needs. His browned sturdy arms spread out along the rail, Matthew Ledyard looked much like a man crucified, his dark face unflinching in the sun.
human
And I wonder would you be out there too--Mister Cory? Pulling an oar? With your charmed young life, so even the tropic sun won't strike you down? Or back here on the deck belike, so to sail with Captain Shawn when the rest of us is maybe dried up and burnt too black to stink? Or will you now be trundling aft to tell the Captain what old Ledyard said to you?
gpt
I have never carried tales to Shawn and you know it.
human
Ya-ah--maybe I do know it. Maybe I wished to learn if you could ever be angered any way at all.
gpt
I can. Ledyard's heavy brows lifted; his brown eyes in the sun squeezed down to little fires.
human
I can, and since you're a-mind to speak to me at last, I'll say this: the hope was never fair, it was rotten in the beginning, and I told him so. He lets me live because he imagines he can change me into one like himself, no other reason. He cannot. As for me, I swallow the puky food and haul on the ropes and jump to Marsh's orders because I wish to live, no other reason. I'm not Shawn's man.
gpt
Whose then?
human
My own.
gpt
That'd be the hard thing to prove in the sight of God.
human
And you shall be your own man, nothing less.
gpt
Shall I so? Ledyard winced heavily and turned his face away from the beating of the sun at last, but Ben tightened his grip.
human
How could that be, now? You don't know, boy, you don't know----
gpt
Why, I say it shall be.
human
And who a devil's name are you? A boy--a----
gpt
Benjamin Cory, son of Joseph Cory of Deerfield, adopted son of Mr. John Kenny of Roxbury, who owns this ketch. Look back at me!
human
You will believe it, Matthew Ledyard, so now listen to me. She is not the old bitch. She is the ketch _Artemis_ out of Boston, and the man who's a second father to me, whom you served well for nearly the length of my life--he had a hand in designing her. My brother and I climbed about on her ribs when she was a-building up the Mystic River--you were there. Since those days I have loved her, as Kenny's vessel and mine, sir, _mine_--and you were her carpenter, and Peter Jenks is her captain. Ledyard groaned at the sound of that name and jerked his hand away and pounded it on the rail. Ben reached out quickly and tapped his purple cheek.
gpt
Look back at me, I say! Chips--what's the name of this ketch?
human
The ketch is the _Artemis_, he said, harshly and choking on it.
gpt
Step away from me, Cory, or they'll notice us from the quarterdeck.
human
What will you do?
gpt
Who would be with us?
human
Joey Mills. But he's old and puny.
gpt
Are you sure of him?
human
Sure enough. We--have spoke of it. But----
gpt
I've seen him wear a pistol sometimes. I suppose he could use it? Ledyard grunted.
human
I suppose he might even bear a message from me to Captain Jenks?
gpt
Oh, my God!... You mean it, don't you?
human
I will ask you to cease doubting it. Now, how many men would it require, to get _Artemis_ home to Boston?
gpt
God!... Three or four hands could do it somehow. He sounded calmer. Glancing at him again, Ben found his face no less a battlefield, even more perhaps, but it had grown sharp with intelligence.
human
On such a thing as that, Mr. Cory, you'd be obliged to play it timid, understand me? Reef in at the first hint of dirty weather, if you'll take an old seaman's word for it. Comes fast, do you see? You remember we rode out a bad one off Grenada last year, and it was all hands hop to it, and even then it near-about caught us. Now imagine two or three men trying to get her snug in the time we did it then! Remember you got to keep one at the helm. All the same--all the same, sir, three or four hands could do it. That--is your intention?
gpt
It's my intention to try. What about Dummy?
human
Shawn's dog. Jack's another dog, a mad one.
gpt
That's mostly show, I think. It makes others let him alone.
human
Maybe, but don't trust him, Mr. Cory. He's not--with us.
gpt
Manuel?
human
Can neither fight nor hold his tongue.... If you--if we can take care of Shawn and the others, you would release the Captain?
gpt
Certainly.
human
Then I ... Mr. Cory, I'll beg you for your word on a--on two things, if I may.
gpt
What?
human
If we can do it, and if Captain Jenks is free, put in a word for me. Let him know that whatever else I did, I tried to change back to what I was. Let him know I went back. Those would be the words, Mr. Cory. Say to him, if so be I can't say it myself, say that Matthew Ledyard went back.
gpt
I will.
human
And one other thing. If we can do it, then when we raise the Cape or--my God, better if it might be Rhode Island, but I suppose there's no hope of that--aid me, if you can, to get away in the boat. It's a thing, Mr. Cory--I've got a fear I wouldn't hang decent. Sooner drown. Would it sit fair with your conscience to help me run for it? Would you do that much, if I can help you in this thing?
gpt
It sticks in my conscience that hanging never mended anything, and I will do that if I can. It'll mean deceiving Captain Jenks, helping you steal the boat, but I will do it. Matthew Ledyard, I'm eighteen, with less than a year at sea against the many that you've served. Can you take orders from me?
human
Yes, sir, I can.
gpt
Bide the time then. It will be soon. I must speak with Mills and do one or two other things.
human
Don't forget, those are the words, Mr. Cory--Matthew Ledyard went back....