I couldn't really believe it just yet, but I couldn't disbelieve it either. For the next three days I went about my customary routines with a calm exterior, waiting for the storm to break, but it never did. Finally, to test it, I deliberately went on a tour of inspection through the ship, until I came to where Resnick was working, along with several others of the crew. As I entered the compartment and saw him look up, I saw the instinctive cringing that he couldn't help. In a flash of inspiration I saw that his sadism was a cover for his own cowardice, a compensation mechanism. I knew then that I had won. After one long silent moment I turned my back on him and left the compartment. As I walked by myself to the central tube and pulled myself up to the Captain's deck, for the first time I began to realize what being Captain meant. It means a lot of things, of course, but most of all it means facing up to one's command, being in charge. I knew that I would never again be afraid--least of all afraid of Oscar Resnick. Nor would I ever again be afraid of fear. In the future I might be faced with the problem of a bully on my crew again, but I would know how to deal with him--with his own weapons, the ones he used _because he would be most vulnerable to them himself_. When the _Alabama_ reached North Marsport Resnick quit the ship. I was glad to see him go. The rest of the crew remained with me, and I had no more trouble during the five years I commanded the _Alabama_. David Markham remained with me as my orderly until I retired, and he is still with me. A few years after the incidents of this story I had an opportunity to get him a commission but he turned it down and refused to leave me. Sometimes I think he knows what happened in my office that day that I called Resnick in, but he has never given any hint whether he does or not. You wonder that I am not ashamed to confess publicly to you that I was a coward? You shouldn't wonder. We are all cowards--or fools. I am not ashamed of the fact that once I was a coward. Bravery, in a way, consists in not being afraid of being afraid. Just one thing remains in my story. When I reached North Marsport on that first leg of my first command, I was a Captain. I have been one ever since. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Peabody, by Rog Phillips