? ? ? ? 'No, not that!'
? ? ? ? 'Then what should I do? Kill myself?'
? ? ? ? 'You speak in purely materialistic terms,' she objected. 'There is such a thing as moral courage, and moral courage is never without effect.'
? ? ? ? 'Ah,' I smiled, 'you advise me to kill neither him nor myself, but to let him kill me.' I held up my hand as she was about to speak. 'For moral courage is a worthless asset on this little floating world. Leach, one of the men who were murdered, had moral courage to an unusual degree. So had the other man, Johnson. Not only did it not stand them in good stead, but it destroyed them. And so with me, if I should exercise what little moral courage I may possess. You must understand, Miss Brewster, and understand clearly, that this man is a monster. He is without conscience. Nothing is sacred to him, nothing is too terrible for him to do. It was due to his whim that I was detained aboard in the first place. It is due to his whim that I am still alive. I do nothing, can do nothing, because I am a slave to this monster, as you are now a slave to him; because I desire to live, as you will desire to live; because I cannot fight and overcome him, just as you will not be able to fight and overcome him.
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