This state of affairs continued until he had navigated, according to instructions, to Amsterdam Island, and had come to anchor there. He knew nothing of what had taken place on the schooner since the mutiny, as he was at all times closely guarded. Then he was told briefly to come along, and was taken ashore with the two other men—both foremast hands—and left there, with nothing but what they had on their persons. Why they did not simply throw all three of them overboard he could not imagine, unless they had had enough of murder; and why he had been permitted to navigate so long, when they had a competent navigator in Wallet, he did not see. But so it was. No doubt Wallet had been navigator since; the nine months that they had been on Amsterdam. His plans—he had made many—had come to nothing, but what could he have done, and why was the situation not better as it was than it would have been if he had allowed himself to be thrown overboard? Tell him that. To that Captain Nelson growled assent. “Where ’d you get your flag?” he asked. Captain Coffin straightened in his chair, and brought his fist down on the table. “Gorry!” he cried. “I forgot that flag. I ’ll have to go ashore and take it down. It ’s my undershirt.” “Only one you had?” “ ’Course. ’D you think I wore two?” “Cold?” “Sometimes. But that ’s nothing, and it ’s over and done with.” The two captains sat silent for a while, Captain Coffin gazing out of the cabin window. “I aimed,” he said at last, “to wreck her, if nothing better turned up, when we got where there were some people, and my chance would be as good as the next man’s. {274} I guess Drew knew it, and thought he ’d better get rid of me. I had the Keelings in mind, or Sunda Strait”—he called it Sunday—“or some parts thereabouts, if the weather turned favorable for wrecking. Pretty bad gales at the Keelings in the season. Well—that ’s all, I guess. I ’d like to come across the Battles again. Maybe I ’ll be able to get some fast little schooner, and some kind of a crew, at Batavia, and go after her. I ’d spend my last cent on it.” Captain Nelson grunted again. “I ’d give you a berth here if I had one. Better make up your mind to stay on this ship, Fred, and we ’ll see what turns up. I ’ll ship your two men. We ’re two men short.” Then he told about Smith. “Good!” cried Captain Coffin. “Good! Just right, and just like you, Cap’n. I ’d have given something to have the chance on the Battles, but there was never a suspicion. Drew was too smart. He ’s a damned smart man.” “H’m!” Captain Nelson was noncommittal. “Now that we ’re here, we may as well lay in some wood. I ’ll have the men take down that shirt of yours.”