Fred, tranquilized by a drink of whiskey and a large dose of bromide, was soon sound asleep; and a few moments later I followed him into the land of Nod, where I found the clawed monster and the clawless, headless, eyeless _thing_. I fought the former and fled from the latter, wakening at last from extremity of terror, with my clothing drenched with perspiration. Fred was still asleep, and I was satisfied to leave him so, and remain awake myself. Even then, with my limited knowledge of psychology, I remembered that I tried to puzzle out this strange bond of soul between this weakling and myself; but I could not solve the problem. All that I could formulate was that in my presence he could fight, and be a man; in my absence, or when unconscious, he was a sniveling whiner. As for the nightmares that came to me lately from contact with him, I had suffered from them before he was born. This was what stopped me; I could not understand this. After supper, when Fred was awake, and more or less normal, we received another visit from the captain. He spoke first to me. "You are a man of force and character," he said, "and of some education, I can see." "A high-school graduate, captain, nothing more." "Are you a navigator, as you say?" "I can take the sun for latitude, that's all." "I am sorry. It will not do. I need a mate who can stand watch, command the men--for I have a hard crowd--and keep the log." "I can command the men, if you're thinking of me; but I never saw a log." "And your friend?" "A graduate navigator from Annapolis," spoke up Fred. "But I never commanded men." "You will do. The laws of insurance demand that the first mate be a navigator. You two men must stand trial for manslaughter at the next port. Will you sail to that port as officers of my ship, or do you prefer to remain in irons?" We gladly chose the former, and gave our words of honor not to attempt an escape at the end of the passage. Thus secured, the captain made me second mate, and Fred first mate, and as he unlocked our irons promised to give us his sympathy and testimony at the trial. For he had witnessed the tormenting of Fred by the second mate, and had verified my protest of noncombativeness. So Fred, an untried boy of twenty, with only a book-taught knowledge of navigation and seamanship, assumed the duties of first officer in a two-thousand-ton, square-rigged ship, in place of a man I had killed; and I, a schooner second mate, stepped into a like position in this big square-rigger. In place of the man he had disabled--both of us prisoners under the law--for the simple reason that among the crew no others were in any way capable. I do not say that I assumed my new duties without misgivings at the future, or that I wholly justified myself _to_ myself in regard to my killing the mate; but I won the skipper's approval at once; and, as Fred got the whiskey out of him, slept well in my watch below, seeing neither monsters nor _things_.