MURRAY’S PLAN
Murray led us to a door in the break of the poop which was opened for
us by a stalwart black in a red livery coat, who ushered us along a
companionway lined with stateroom doors into a spacious state cabin
stretching the width of the stern. The walls were paneled in
mahogany; silver sconces were fastened at intervals, and a wondrous
luster chandelier was pendant from the ceiling, itself uncommonly
lofty for shipboard; several paintings in the French school hung at
the sides; and there were trophies of peculiar arms and armor.
Underfoot were Eastern rugs, thick-piled and soft of hue. The
furniture was of mahogany, and a service of massy plate appeared upon
the table that was set under the range of windows which formed the
rear wall of the room.
My great-uncle surveyed this magnificence with pardonable pride.
’Twas evident it meant something to him.
“Diomede,” he said to the negro, “where is Master Gunn?”
A high, piping voice answered him from the companionway.
“Coming, worshipful sir. Ben Gunn’s a-coming. I jest stopped by the
galley to fetch up your chocolate, a-sayin’ to myself as the captain
would be sharp-set account o’ early business in the morning.”
The man who followed the voice trotted in bearing a silver pitcher of
steaming chocolate, Murray’s favorite drink; aye, and food. He was a
slender fellow, with a simple, open face, clad in plain black as
became an upper servant. He stopped dead at sight of us.
“Set your tray on the table, Gunn,” instructed my great-uncle. “This
is my grandnephew, Master Ormerod, and his friend, Master Corlaer.
They are to sail with us a while.”
Gunn pulled his forelock and ducked.
“Sarvant, gentlemen,” he acknowledged. “Allus glad to please, is Ben
Gunn. Bound to oblige ye, gentlemen. You jest name your drinks, and
I’ll fetch ’em up from the wine-bins.”
“Food as well, Gunn,” said Murray. “And Captain Flint is coming
aboard.”
Ben Gunn cocked his head on one side.
“That means rum,” he commented. “Plenty o’ rum, says you. Jest
leave it to Ben, captain.”
He ducked and scraped again and skipped off into the companionway
with a kind of wiggle like a self-conscious child.
“My steward,” remarked my relative. “He will be at your disposal for
anything you require, Robert--yours, too, friend Peter. You will
find the negroes equally anxious to please.”
“The man is a half-wit, is he not?” I asked.
“A natural, yes,” assented Murray, tasting the chocolate.
“I should think it would be dangerous to have one so simple in such
close proximity to you.”
My great-uncle smiled.
“You are quite, quite wrong, my boy. It is for the very reason that
the man is incapable of spying that I use him. He is more valuable
for my purposes than the most intelligent member of the crew.”
He broke off.
“This chocolate is by no means so well brewed as Silver’s. An
extraordinary fellow, that, monstrously clever--exactly the sort of
man, Robert, I never permit to remain near me. Indeed, if you
possess the patience and the interest to analyze the composition of
my officers and crew you will observe, I believe, that there is not
an independently clever man amongst them. Aye, and if you find me a
clever man aboard the _Royal James_--yourself and friend Peter
excepted, of course--I will thank you to point him out to me, and I
will straightway make a present of him to Flint, who must have half a
dozen of the _Walrus’_ crew who esteem themselves equally capable
with him of commanding her.”
“Yet the _James_ was able to get along without you for several days,”
I remarked.
“Ah! A shrewd thrust! I am bound to admit, my dear Robert, that I
regarded my recently concluded expedition as a dubious experiment.
’Twas in the light of reflections identical with those you have just
detailed that I spoke of it as a problem in human equations. I was
reasonably convinced that I could depend upon my men, but I should
not have been greatly surprized had they abandoned me.
“I am not--by necessity I am not--regarded with affection by my
followers. And on the whole, I think, I have gotten along better by
means of fear than I might have by means of affection. Fear is a
natural element in a pirate’s career. What place has he in his life
for affections?
“But we are faring far afield, Robert, into realms of philosophy in
no way affiliated with our problems of the immediate moment. Hark!
Do I not hear something?”
He did beyond question--an uproar of curses and shouts upon the deck
outside.
“Perhaps your crew have decided to spring their revolt after your
return, instead of during your absence,” I suggested.
He shook his head, smiling.
“No, no. It is only that Captain Flint has come aboard. Pray take
your seats. I promise you an interesting episode.”
The door to the deck banged open, and a harsh, domineering voice
bellowed in the companionway.
“---- me, Martin, what the ---- ---- ---- ---- d’ye think ye are? By
the ---- ---- ---- ----, ye lousy, slack-bellied swab, ye made us----”
“Stow that, ye ---- ---- ---- apology for a ---- ---- ---- ----,”
interrupted Martin mildly from the deck. “Why, any ---- ---- would
ha’ had more sense than you!”
“Like ----! I’m my own master, I am. I----”
“Ye may be when ye stand on the _Walrus’_ deck, but here you’re only
another ---- as doesn’t know better’n to veer after----”
“Belay for a ---- ---- lackey, ye slab-faced chunk o’ rotted
sea-horse! I’ll talk to your master!”
Slam went the door, and a mutter of curses rumbled from the
companionway, preceding a tall, blue-jowled man in a flaming red coat
all cobwebbed over with gold lace. He halted in the cabin entrance,
hands on his hips, feet planted wide, close-set green eyes flickering
balefully on either side of a long nose that seemed to poke out from
a tangle of lank, black hair.
“Back, eh, Murray?” he snarled. “Two men the richer for your effort.
Gut me, ’twas a fool’s errand!”
“Pardon me,” objected Murray, “but I am considerably more than ‘two
men the richer’ in consequence of my run ashore--although I would not
appear by these words to deprecate the importance to be attached to
the acquisition of my grandnephew and Master Corlaer. Permit me,
Captain Flint! Master Ormerod, my grandnephew, and Peter Corlaer.”
And to me, aside:
“I fear these introductions must become boring. We shall require no
more.”
Flint scowled at us, flinging himself into a chair at the opposite
end of the table from my great-uncle.
“A youth and a fat man!” he ejaculated. “And unwilling at that, so
Bones tells me.”
“Master Bones was correct in that statement,” my great-uncle assented
cheerfully; “but I fancy he neglected to add that the ‘fat man’ took
his knife away from him and must have hanged him had I not
intervened.”
An appreciable degree of respect dawned in Flint’s eyes.
“He is no butter-tub if he bested Bill,” conceded the _Walrus’_
captain. “Curse me, though, if I see why you should add a cub to
your crew.”
“Tut, tut, captain,” remonstrated Murray. “‘A cub!’ Think again.
The boy is my heir.”
“All he’ll fall heir to will be the rope that hung you,” returned
Flint. “But I’ll own I did you wrong when I accused you of being but
two men the better by your shore expedition. I was forgetting the
red-headed mascot John Silver fetched aboard. ’Tis the first promise
o’ luck we ha’ had! I’d never have lost that Philadelphia packet t’
other day with him aboard.”
“I believe I overheard something of a dispute with Martin on that
point,” commented my great-uncle dryly. “He obeyed my orders in
calling you off, and you broke our agreement when you would have
given chase.”
“And why not?” roared Flint. “A ---- ---- fool agreement, if you
broach it now! A ---- ---- of a ---- ---- piece of ---- ---- ----
idiocy! Curse me for a lubber if I see the sense in letting a fat
prize slip through our fingers. And so I told Martin. Let me have
him on my deck, and I’d use my hanger to him.”
My uncle took snuff with much delicacy and rang a silver bell in
front of him.
“Gunn is late with the liquor. I must ask your indulgence, captain,
for compelling you to talk dry. But as to Martin and the prize.
Indeed, you wrong the good fellow. As I have already said, he did no
more than carry out my orders, and while you may experience
difficulty in comprehending my reasons for stipulating that no prizes
were to be taken in my absence, I am so vain as to suppose that a few
moments’ conversation will clear all doubts from your mind.”
Ben Gunn bustled into the cabin in the course of this harangue and
deposited a trayful of decanters, bottles and flasks before us.
Captain Flint, without awaiting an invitation, seized upon an earthen
receptacle labeled “Gedney’s Jamaican Rum,” pried out the cork with
the point of a knife, tilted it to his mouth and drained a mighty
dram. Then he set it down beside him, wiped his mouth on his
coat-cuff and cleared his throat.
“Humph,” he growled. “I’m listening.”
My uncle looked distressed.
“Gunn,” he said, “how often have I asked you to supply Captain Flint
with a goblet, beaker or some other drinking-utensil?”
The steward wiggled abjectly and pulled his forelock.
“Oft and often you has, captain, but ’taint no manner o’
use--leastways not the fust time. Captain Flint says as how he
always has to take the flavor of a new flask straight from the neck.”
“And so I do,” agreed Flint. “Rum don’t taste the same in a cup. Ye
drink coffee or tea in a cup--but rum! ---- my eyes if I ever see so
much fuss over drink and victuals as you make. But anything to
oblige, Murray. I don’t ha’ to eat with ye every day, thank God!”
Gunn produced a large silver goblet from a wall-cupboard, and Flint
straightway filled it to the brim. I pushed a cut-glass carafe of
water toward him, supposing he would wish some dilution, and he
laughed jarringly.
“You ha’ much to learn, my lad,” he jeered. “We don’t spoil good rum
wi’ water aboard the _Walrus_. There’s a cask broached this minute
on the spar-deck, and all hands fillin’ their pannikins as fast as
they can empty ’em, wi’ red-headed Darby astride the butt for luck.”
“Which means you will be in no condition to make sail a few hours
hence,” deplored my great-uncle, wagging his head. “’Tis
foolishness, Flint. This rum-swigging will yet prove the undoing of
you and every man of your crew. I am no upholder of imaginary
virtues, as you know, but unbridled indulgence must ultimately defeat
its own ends.”
“Look to your ship, and I’ll look to mine,” snapped Flint, quaffing a
wineglassful of the goblet’s contents.
My uncle stared him straight in the eye with a hard, direct thrust of
power which stirred my unwilling admiration.
“To whom do you owe your present position?” he asked coldly.
Flint made a patent attempt to stare him down, but abandoned the
effort and looked away.
“Some might say one thing and some another,” he muttered.
“To whom do you owe your present position, Flint?” repeated Murray.
“Oh, to you, most like,” admitted Flint. “Blast you!”
“Have I ever led you into difficulties?” continued my great-uncle.
“Not if----”
“Have I ever led you into difficulties?”
“No.”
“Have we failed in any important venture since our association began?”
“Not yet,” admitted Flint sourly.
“Very well. Now I ask you: When I promise a certain accomplishment
am I to be relied upon?”
“You ha’ a head on your shoulders,” conceded Flint.
“And you have not,” amended Murray. “No, do not say any more. You
are an excellent man to handle your ship, Flint, and as fearless as
any of our ruffians; but you are no more capable of looking ahead a
week or two than Ben Gunn.”
“I take much from ye, Murray,” snarled Flint, half-rising; “but think
not ye can humble me before----”
“Sit down,” ordered Murray. “You’ll take what you deserve, which in
this instance is a plain statement that you would ha’ made a fool of
yourself by chasing the Philadelphia packet. I doubt if you could
have taken her, for your bottom is foul; but if you had, her loss
must have aroused comment, and with New York already apprised that we
are in these seas we should ha’ had every frigate on the North
American and West Indian stations a-hunting us. And what then?”
“We could lie up safe enough at the Rendeyvoo.”
“Spyglass Island? I dare say--although some day ’twill be blundered
upon, if not discovered. But I ask you to recall that we take no
prizes when we hole up. ’Tis a losing game.”
“Well, what would you?” Flint flung at him with an air of defiance,
which Murray ignored.
“I would make the greatest coup we have attempted.”
Flint laughed disagreeably.
“So you said when you arranged to go into New York, but you have
carried back no treasure with you.”
My uncle regarded him with what, under other circumstances, I should
describe as honest indignation.
“You fool!” he said with a rasp in his voice--and I did not wonder
that Flint pulled sidewise in his chair as if to avoid a stab. “Did
you think I was to go into that huddle of a town, with its wealth in
furs and groceries, and fetch out a treasure?”
“What, then?” demanded Flint, moistening his lips.
My uncle leaned forward across the table, lips drawn tight over his
teeth. His eyes shot sparks.
“Knowledge, fool! Intelligence! That which wise men labor a
lifetime to secure and the ignorant pass by in the gutter.”
“It may be knowledge to you,” protested Flint childishly; “but how’m
I to know of it as never heard it?”
Murray rose from the table and commenced to stroll the length of the
cabin, hands clasped under the skirts of his coat. And as he
strolled he talked. Flint followed his every move uneasily, with
occasional drafts of rum. Peter and I watched the two of them,
fascinated by this conflict of wills, which was to exert a vital
influence upon our lives--yes, and upon those of hundreds of others.
“I must speak in simple terms, I perceive, Flint,” began my
great-uncle.
The passion was out of his voice, and the sentences trickled from his
lips slowly, with an air of detachment.
“And that I may speak simply and present adequately an important
subject, I must ask you to indulge me at length.”
Flint nodded sullenly, seeing that an answer was required.
“We have frequently discussed the possibility of taking one of the
Spanish treasure-ships,” continued Murray. “But we have never
attempted the project because we could not discover the date of
sailing or the port wherein the treasure was embarked. It hath been
the custom of the Spaniards in recent years--in fact, since the
depredations of Morgan and his brethren--to shift arbitrarily the
port of embarkation from year to year, as likewise to change the date
of sailing. One year the port would be Cartagena, the next Chagres,
the next Porto Bello, the next even Vera Cruz. They have been known
to ship the year’s produce of the mines around Cape Horn. And
similarly the treasure ships, which used formerly to sail invariably
in the Fall of the year, now depart whenever it pleases the fancy of
the Council of the Indies to fix a date.”
He paused, and Flint rasped----
“So much is known to all of us.”
“I conceded as much,” answered Murray smoothly. “What follows you do
not know. When we returned from Madagascar----”
“’Twas against my advice,” growled Flint. “Ye play too much wi’
politics.”
“With politics! Exactly,” agreed my great-uncle. “Well, perhaps I
do. ’Tis true that so far I have obtained trifling advantage from
the sport, excluding one substantial fortune, this vessel we are in
and the information which makes it possible for me to take this
year’s treasure-ship.”
Flint sat erect. I caught my breath. Peter, too, showed a gleam of
excitement in his little eyes that twinkled from behind the ramparts
of flesh that masked his solemn face.
“---- me, Murray!” swore Flint. “Do you say that in sober earnest?”
“I do. Do you remember that we cruised off the Spanish coast last
Spring and Fall, and that two months since I sent a periague into the
Havana? During our Spanish cruises I established connections with a
group of Jacobite gentlemen who know me and placed before them the
outline of a plan, the acceptance of which they communicated to me in
dispatches the periague fetched to Spyglass Island. In those
dispatches I was notified to meet my principal confederate in New
York on a certain date. I met him. The necessary arrangements were
consummated, and it simply remains for us to execute the plan.”
Flint clutched at his beaker of rum and emptied it shakily into his
throat.
“How--how much?” he quavered.
“One million five hundred thousand pounds.”
There was a moment of silence. The clean, golden sunlight flooded
through the stern windows and dappled the polished surface of the
table with darting molts and beams. Flint’s jaw dropped on his
chest. His green eyes glared. Peter and I were as dazed as himself.
Only my great-uncle remained calm, pacing quietly up and down the
carpeted deck, eyes fixed upon some vision of the future.
“All--that?” stammered Flint. “’Sdeath! ’T would be the greatest
haul in our time, Murray.
“It is ours,” affirmed Murray. “Upon terms.”
“Terms?” echoed Flint. “What terms? Who can compel us to terms?”
My great-uncle came to a stop in front of him.
“My terms, let us say,” he answered.
“Oh, aye,” mumbled Flint. “But if ’tis there for the taking----”
“It will be there for the taking, as you put it, upon the terms I lay
down,” stated my great-uncle.
“But if ye know of yourself where it can be taken why must we bother
wi’ terms, Murray?” clamored Flint. “What’s riches for us can be
pared down to short cuts if it must be shared out right and left.”
My great-uncle’s laughter was wholly contemptuous.
“Observe, Robert,” he appealed to me, “here was a man, who, a
half-hour past, knew naught of this treasure we are discussing. It
meant nothing to him. He never dreamed of obtaining it. And now
that he has held out to him the possibility of looting a measure of
it he waxes indignant lest that measure be too small!”
Flint refilled the beaker with rum.
The stuff seemed to heighten the uncanny blue pallor of his face, and
the pupils of his eyes dwindled to pin-pricks, whether from the
strong drink or excitement I can not say. But his manner was
steadier than it had been.
“Why not?” he flared in reply to my relative’s mockery. “If we take
it, why not take all?”
“Because,” retorted Murray with a burst of terrible energy, “I have
passed my word as to the terms upon which the treasure is to be
taken.”
“What’s your word?” rapped Flint.
For a moment I thought my great-uncle would strike him. He made to
draw back his arm, and perspiration stood out in white beads upon his
forehead. Flint feared it, too, but did not raise a hand to protect
himself, charmed to immobility by the virulence of the basilisk’s
stare which Murray directed at him.
“It is my word,” said Murray finally in a very soft voice. “No more,
Flint. A poor thing, as the poet hath said, yet my own! Also--that
I may chime in harmony with your mental processes--it happens that my
personal interests are bound up with the observance of these terms.”
“I thought so,” sneered Flint.
“Ah! Did you?”
My great-uncle’s tones continued dulcet.
“It is a matter we will not discuss further, since it is beyond the
range of your comprehension. I shall merely say that the terms are
fixed, and that you will either accept or reject them.”
“What are they?”
“As to division of the spoils? One hundred thousand pounds to myself
as author and architect of the plan; seven hundred thousand to our
two ships; and seven hundred thousand to my friends who coöperated
with me to make it possible.”
Flint brought his fist crashing down upon the table.
“I’ll be ---- if I accept!” he shouted. “What? Less than half to
our company? And you sneaking off with a cool hundred thousand
pounds in your pockets, and your friends, as like as not, splitting
secretly with you!”
My great-uncle refreshed himself with snuff, contriving to invest the
ceremony with an effect of distaste which I found amusing.
“Stap me, but you have a low mind!” he drawled. “Allow me to direct
your attention to the fact that the plan amounts to my friends and I
undertaking voluntarily to present you an opportunity to participate
in the division of seven hundred thousand pounds, for which you will
be called upon to do nothing except agree to follow out several
stipulations I shall lay down.”
“Let’s hear ’em.”
My great-uncle ticked off the items upon his finger-tips.
“First, ’tis highly desirable that we should lie low during the
ensuing months. Activities such as we usually conduct would tend to
affright the Council of the Indies and bring about a change in plan
for the treasure-ship’s sailing.”
“What shall we do, then?”
“My counsel is to bear up for Spyglass Island and careen there. Both
ships are foul, and ’twill prove an excellent opportunity to make all
clean and right.”
Flint nodded.
“We shall need our speed against the Spaniard,” he commented.
“_I_ shall,” returned my great-uncle with some emphasis. “This
brings me to my second point. ’Tis advisable that we do not cruise
in company for the treasure. I aim to intercept the _Santissima
Trinidad_ before she passes from the Caribbean into the Atlantic, and
to that end I shall hover on a particular meridian awaiting secret
intelligence notifying me when she puts forth from her port.”
The blue look became intensified in Flint’s face.
“You’d leave the _Walrus_ behind?” he demanded.
“I must. Figure it for yourself,” argued my relative. “Two tall
ships plying the narrow seas, within easy sail of Jamaica and the
Havana and Martinico! We should have the frigates after us in no
time. My plan is to masquerade as a King’s ship, running from any
ugly customers who show themselves.”
“Aye,” said Flint. “And after you’d taken the treasure and stowed it
all below hatches what thought would you give to us aboard the
_Walrus_, eh? You’d be up and off, and we might whistle for our
share.”
“You wrong me, Captain Flint,” replied my great-uncle simply.
But Flint gave an ugly laugh. It might be the rum or the stimulus of
the debate or a gradual access of self-reliance; but he was no longer
to be cowed by moral suasion. If I had doubted this, the suave
diplomacy with which my great-uncle proceeded to treat him must have
convinced me to the contrary.
“If I wrong you, Murray, ’twould be the first time without valid
cause,” Flint rejoined. “Come, come! You must think of me better
than that.”
“I have thought of the best terms possible,” answered Murray. “Mark
me, ’twould be perfectly feasible for me to give you the slip any
dark night, take the _Santissima Trinidad_ by my lone and never
account to you for a doubloon. I do not for two reasons: First, I
have a feeling of common loyalty to you and your men; we have worked
and fought together in the past, and I would give them their share in
this haul. Second, I wish to use the Rendezvous in connection with
the coup, and if you choose to look at it so, you can set down your
inclusion as payment for that, as well as for your sacrificing
chances at other prizes by keeping under cover.”
“It won’t wash,” denied Flint. “What you say sounds well enough. It
may be true. But I couldn’t go back and report it to a fo’csle
counsel on the _Walrus_ and expect to have it believed. I have to
blink myself when I think of it. ----!” He grinned evilly. “I know
what I’d do in your shoes.”
My great-uncle regarded him speculatively.
“What, then, is your answer?” Murray inquired.
“I don’t play on those terms,” returned Flint with decision. “Let me
cruise with you, have a share in taking the prize, and I’ll talk
differently.”
Murray shook his head.
“’Twould ruin the plan. I know you, Flint. ’Tis not in you to
cruise for days and forego fat merchants that cross your bows, ripe
to be plucked. The Philadelphia packet you were fuming over when you
came in here is a case in point! Man, there’d be a dozen such
chances while we awaited the Spaniard, and one of them you’d go for.
No, I can’t risk it. Alone, I can contrive not to attract attention.
In company, we should stir up a hornet’s nest.”
“Curse me for a canting mugger, then, if I’ll trade on it,” snarled
Flint. “I’ll not trust you, Murray, and that’s flat.”
“Suppose that I gave you a hostage?” suggested my great-uncle
tentatively.
“Hostage? Who could ye give me for hostage whose life would mean
aught to you? No, no! Martin or any man you’d see with his throat
cut, and never bat an eye.”
My esteemed relative’s shrug was as complete a repudiation of such a
charge as might be desired. I enjoyed it with mixed feelings because
I was beginning to see the writing on the wall.
“I had not Martin in mind,” he replied now; “but one whose life means
to me more than my own.”
“The man does not live,” Flint swore roundly.
“He sits across the table,” returned Murray. “My grandnephew and
heir. I will go so far as to assert that the only reason I concern
myself with this exploit is that I may secure estate and preferment
for him.”
Flint eyed him shrewdly, looked from him to me and from me to him.
“Your grandnephew, you say? Humph! Long John says you’re choice o’
him. Still-- No, I like not your terms, Murray. They offer too
little.”
“They are the best I can offer,” answered Murray definitely. “I will
add, that there may be no misunderstandings, Flint, that the odd
seven hundred thousand pounds goes to promote the interest of a
cause, and not to line the pockets of Spanish officials, as you may
suspect; and it is highly probable that considerable of my share will
follow it.”
The captain of the _Walrus_ wiped a rumspot from the table and tipped
the earthen flask bottom up above his beaker.
“’Tis a heavy commission to pay,” he said. “Eight hundred thousand
pounds out of a million and a half.”
“That or nothing,” declared Murray.
“And I must lose how many months’ cruising the while you wait for the
treasure-ship?”
“Six or more.”
“Gut me, but ye bargain like a Jew, Murray!”
“And like a Jew I pay well and surely, offering good security.”
“I see it not,” fended Flint, and drained the last of his rum.
“I pay seven hundred thousand pounds, to be divided share and share
by the two ships’ companies, and your company will incur no risk to
win it.”
Flint rose and settled his belt.
“I accept, for that I can do no better,” he said. “But I must have
the hostage. He’s the weak point of it all; but I must take some
chance, and curse me if seven hundred thousand pounds be not worth
the gamble.”
He snapped his finger toward me.
“Come on, my lad. We’ll show you the life of real gentlemen
adventurers aboard the _Walrus_.”
“I’m no negro man to be bargained over and passed from owner to
owner!” I exclaimed hotly. “You can make me go, but I’ll not step
willingly.”
Flint was about to answer with a spurt of oaths when Murray
interrupted.
“You anticipate matters,” he rebuked his associate. “There is no
occasion for a hostage yet. We shall sail at once for the
Rendezvous. It will be weeks, aye, months, before I am in shape to
sail west under Hispaniola. Time enough then to talk of delivering
your hostage.”
For an instant Flint appeared to be about to object to this view, but
he evidently decided it was not worth another dispute.
“Let it go,” he assented gruffly. “We’ll settle the details at the
island. ---- me--” this with a sudden revival of friendliness--“I
knew we had not picked up that red-headed lad for nothing! ’Tis a
sure sign o’ luck.”
And out he swaggered from the cabin, stamping and banging the door
and sprinkling curses freely as he gained the deck and shouted for
his boat’s crew to row him back to the _Walrus_.