On this, without saying another word, he pulled out a little bundle of papers, and, glancing at each--all being inscribed with the respective names of the men--he handed one to Yan Bol, and a second to Friend, and a third to Meehan, and so on, until every man saving the fellow at the wheel had a paper. “Give this to Street, Mr. Fielding,” said Greaves; and, taking the paper, I went to the wheel and gave it to the man who grasped the spokes. The only two sailors who could read, Bol and Wirtz, opened the papers and looked at them. The others put theirs in their pockets. “There is nothing more to be said,” exclaimed the captain; “but should any man feel dissatisfied--whether to-day, after you have talked over what I have told you, or later on, when you have had plenty of leisure to think--let him come to me. He shall have his wages down to date, and be transhipped or set ashore at the first opportunity; for the fewer we are the richer we are. You can now go forward.” He turned and stepped aft, calling to me. CHAPTER XIII. A MIDNIGHT SCARE. Captain Greaves stepped aft, calling to me, as I have said, and I followed him below to his berth, after pausing to make sure that Yan Bol had taken charge of the brig; for it would be his watch till six, and mine till eight, and his again till midnight. The captain closed the door of his berth, and exclaimed: “I have no bond or agreement bearing Tulp’s signature to offer you, because the document he signed was made out in the name of Van Laar, and is, consequently, worthless; but _my_ undertaking will secure you as effectually as though it bore Tulp’s name; and I now propose to make out such a bond for you.” He took a sheet of foolscap from a drawer, seated himself, dipped a quill into an ink-dish, and wrote. I have lost that paper. Years ago I mislaid it, though there were few memorials of my life that I could not have better spared. Its substance, however, I recollect, of course, and what Greaves wrote was to this effect: That having appointed me chief mate of the brig _Black Watch_, in the room of Jacob Van Laar, he agreed that the share in dollars--to wit, 30,556--that was to have been Van Laar’s had he proved himself a competent mate and remained in the ship, should be paid to me--that is to say, to William Fielding; and here he entered certain particulars stating my age, place of birth, my professional antecedents; and he likewise sketched very happily in words my face and appearance, “that Tulp,” said he, “shall not be able to pretend you are not the right man, and so wriggle out of what this document commits him to, in case I should not live to reach home.”