"They ought to be stopped."
"I couldn't stop them without a fight. They were about to court martial
me when they happened to think of something else."
Caradoc stared down in the direction of the noise, "I might talk them
into sense if Greer isn't drunk and wanting to fight again."
"He said he never drank--I don't know."
Caradoc nodded, "I'll go down and send them forward," he asserted with
conviction, and started to climb out of the barrel.
Madden looked at the Englishman with a certain apprehension, "Caradoc,
if you go down there where they are drinking, won't you----"
"No, I'm not going to drink."
"It will be a temptation."
"I have myself in hand now. This talk has done me good. No, I'm all
right." He swung out of the barrel and started down the ratlines.
Leonard watched him anxiously, not at all sure of the outcome of his
mission, not at all sure that the hot smell of rum in the galley would
not again overcome his resistance.
The sun was just dipping into the sea and its last light spread out of
the west to the zenith like a huge red-gold fan. Purplish shadows had
already begun to dim the tug and dock and ocean.
Fifteen or twenty degrees above the sunset shone a pale crescent moon in
the burnished sky. The sight of the moon somehow cheered Madden.
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