A flash of lightning showed Benson standing near the break of the poop. He was straining his eyes to windward and holding on to a line, but he appeared little concerned. Close by, leaning against the mizzen with his arms folded and pipe stuck rakishly in his mouth, was Johnson. Whatever the two ruffians felt, I knew that fear found no place in their hearts. They were trusting me to see them safely through, and all the time, whether they knew it or not, the thought of the girl below in the scoundrel’s stateroom was the only thing that kept me from sending them to hell. A sudden swing into the wind and a couple of cast off braces, and the fate of the villains would be as certain as death and suffering itself. Yet, there they stood, trusting me. I never could understand it, and I thought upon it for some time that night in the black rush of the pampero. The futility of their struggles, the absolute hopelessness of their case, were all plain before me, but they were unconcerned. Benson was a fatalist of the most pronounced type. He dealt only and simply with the present. The past was irrevocably dead, blotted out. The future was a mystery, absolute and unyielding to even the subtlest mind. He dealt with what matter he had in hand nor worried himself the least with that he held in no control. On and on into the blackness ahead we tore at the rate of fifteen knots an hour with the wind upon our starboard taffrail. No one went on lookout, although I ordered a man to do so. Whoever went forward was probably swallowed in the crowd of frightened convicts, or took advantage of the panic to turn in and get some much needed rest. I knew we were entering the zone of commerce and would probably sight some vessel soon, and the thought of tearing away into the night at the wild rate we were going without a light made me strain every nerve for something ahead. It was about midnight that I thought I saw a light ahead. I called Benson and asked him to look, for my eyes were raw from the salt spume and want of rest. The fellow saw nothing, and we stood together gazing into the blackness beyond the jib-boom end. Then I suddenly made out a green light close aboard and to port, and I knew we were upon a vessel hove to in the storm. We had been running with the wind drawing more and more upon the starboard quarter and I saw that it would not do to luff any further and cross the stranger’s bow. Besides, he might be going ahead some in spite of the sea which was now running heavily. There was not a second to lose, and I sprang to the wheel and rolled it up to pass his stern. Almost before the lubber’s mark began to shift, the green light disappeared and the blackness ahead took form. Right in front of us lay an immense ship wallowing along under short canvas and not fifty fathoms distant.