Ben's body was learning too, his hands calloused and enlarged, his shoulders thickened. Already wiry and tough, he was aware of a burgeoning strength that never reached exhaustion even in the occasional days of bad weather when the mainsail could stiffen and fight back like a living beast. When Ben stripped for swimming, as he had done back there at the island to the amused horror of all aboard, he had noticed a whiplash hardness in leg and thigh, surely much greater than he had possessed a year ago. Ben had been startled to learn--last July, when the _Diana_ put in for careening at another lonely island--that not one other man aboard could swim. So Ben, who had learned it fishlike in the waters of the Pocumtuck River with Reuben darting around him, a little demon of gold and ivory, frolicked alone in the surf and beyond it, amazed and delighted at the buoyancy of salt water and the untiring almightiness of the waves. Even to Shawn it was a mystery. Manuel giggled helplessly. Tom Ball appeared to regard it as a black art. Once in November, during a lesson on the sextant, Shawn had happened to stretch and flex his shoulders, and Ben discovered that he was fully as tall as Captain Shawn. Another time, Ben spoke with careless sharpness to Joey Mills--the old man's garrulity could be a nuisance--and Joey had drawn back in manifest physical fright, astonishing to Ben until he understood: Well, I could break him in two, couldn't I? Manuel? One fist, and Manuel would cringe and run. Ledyard? Maybe, just maybe. That would be a near thing. Ball? French Jack? Well, hardly. And still, either of them might think twice before starting anything unarmed, or alone. Dummy? Never, if he got a grip. Judah Marsh? Why, knives put aside, by God, I could flatten him like a bug, and wash my hands. Shawn?... The whisper continued in the dark. Since leaving the island under the northeast trade, Captain Shawn had spent most of his time in the locked cabin, or on deck in a black and scowling silence. He ordered the log cast unreasonably often; it was plain the _Diana_ was maintaining an even speed, better than nine knots. Ben was present whenever Shawn checked his bearings, and could make his own calculations. When his trick at the helm began at midnight on the seventh night out from the island, the _Diana_ had crossed the 18th parallel and was surely far east of the Leewards, too far if Shawn intended any business with them, and was still running blandly southeast. Why?...