That's how Pete came to be cap'n. We sailed on a Friday--unlucky, I've
heard that is. But Pete said them that laid th' Atlantic cable had
started that day an' broke the spell. Pete had a lot o' tales, but he
made a poor cap'n; no head."
"Look here," put in "William with desperate calm," I don't want to
know about Peter Hancock."
"There's not much to know if you did. He made a very poor cap'n,
though it don't become one to say so, now he's gone. An affectionate
man, though, for all his short-comin's. The last time he brought his
vessel home from New Orleans he was in that pore to get back to his
wife an' childer, he ripped along the Gulf Stream and pretty well
ribbed the keelson out of her. Thought, I reckon, that since all the
shareholders belonged to his family th' expense wouldn' be grudged.
But I guess it made her tender. That's how she came to go down so
suddent."
"She foundered?"
"I'm comin' to that. We'd just run our nose into the tropics an' was
headin' down for Kingston Harbour--slippin' along at five knots easy
an' steady, an' not a sign of trouble.
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