"I did, and be damned to you!" roared he. There was a loud report. The boatswain dropped, shot in the leg. And the crew shivered under a gleaming eye and a gleaming weapon. "All hands 'bout ship!" cried the master. The wounded boatswain, raising himself for a moment on one hand, piped faintly, and fell back unconscious. But the men were already at their stations, and in five minutes more the Chrysolite was heading northeast again. Such incidents as these gave John Anderson an unenviable reputation among sailors. It was seldom that the same crew served him twice. Two voyages under this tartar were more than could be stood, and from his subordinates, therefore, he gained nothing but hatred and fear. It was very difficult, then, to find out where Captain Anderson's weakness lay. Everybody, of course, has his weakness. But this man appeared to be all strength. His whole life seemed like a rod of burnished steel--a passion-proof life, a fire-proof rod. The owners of the Chrysolite, Messrs. Ruin & Ruin, of Billiter Street, piqued themselves on knowing his tender point. He was avaricious, thought they; he would do much for money, and they would some day try him in the furnace. It was true, indeed, that the old sailor had amassed considerable wealth during his frequent voyages to the East. It was true also that he was sparing and saving; that he drove bargains to the verge of perdition, and clinched them at the crucial moment. But it was equally true that he was free from fraud. His teas were what they pretended to be, his silks unimpeachable, and no man ever came back upon him with complaints of their genuineness. The world allowed that he was at least commercially honourable, but felt fully convinced that he was eaten up with the desire for gold. But the world was wrong. The captain himself was sometimes given to metaphysical speculation, and even HE was puzzled to know if his heart had a whit more feeling than any other pumping-engine. Women he looked upon as frivolities of vanity to which he could not reconcile his stern nature; and men he regarded as instruments to be rigorously disciplined, not failing at the same time to discipline himself. His heart was of no use to him except to circulate his blood. In default, therefore, of loving anything, he fell naturally to pursuing a difficult task--the piling up of a mountain of gold. This was congenial solely because it was difficult, and difficulties overcome were his only sources of satisfaction.