human
Mr. Shawn, Peter Jenks would speak for me, if I may enter the cabin. Merely the sight of me would make him speak. Does he know I am aboard?
gpt
What? He knows it. I told him long ago you were one of us.
human
Then you told him a lie, for I have never been one of your crew and well you know it.
gpt
But you will be, said Shawn, not commandingly but in pleading, almost in pathos, and took hold of Ben's arm.
human
You will be.
gpt
I can make Jenks speak, Mr. Shawn. You wish him to speak, do you not?
human
What? Why, he must, if only to confess the sin. It's a very great sin to steal a man's dream. I'd compel no man to die in it.
gpt
What if he never did so, Mr. Shawn?
human
You question the voice that guides me?
gpt
Did your voice tell you of the coming of that sloop?
human
I am not God. I am not told everything.
gpt
A sloop bearing Jan Dyckman's name, a sloop that seems now to be moving, Mr. Shawn, in a flat calm where we find no breath of wind at all? But we might be moving presently. Will you look over there--sir?
human
Why, there's the answer! Let it come down on us, and we'll outrun them to the ends of the earth. Can you doubt me now? What's that you were asking? Oh, Jenks, Jenks. You may not go in the cabin, Ben, not yet. But sure he'll speak now, and I seeing to it. A word of that sloop and he'll speak, the Devil willing, if I must cut out his damned tongue and let it wag alone. Shawn strode down the quarterdeck laughing--not in music but with shrillness, high and thin, almost an old man's laugh.
gpt
Let it come down! D'you hear, Ben? D'you hear?--I say, if that squall comes down on us, Mother of God, we'll not reef one inch of sail, I'll hang the man that tries it. Let it come down, we'll go about and run south for Hell or Heaven, or the western sea, or the dark!