She had been lively and delighted with her new home after her capture from the _Schouven_, learning every corner of the ketch--including the galley, where she could engage in shrieking encounters with French Jack. Since she returned continually, and never got anything there except missiles and rhetoric unsuited to the tender sex, Ben deduced that because of her streak of hoyden she must relish war for its own sake. Jack never once scored a hit. Best of all she loved soaring in dizzy flights all over the rigging, and hanging by her tail from the crosstrees to contemplate the sky and the ocean and the ways of man. She would come quickly down out of that for Dummy if he smacked his lips, but not for anyone else--except, occasionally and with the air of granting a favor, for Ben. Now it seemed likely that her airy journeys were ended. Dummy gazed up at Ben with the grieving eyes of an ape-mother, and Ben could find nothing worth saying, but touched his finger to the tiny black bullet head that paid him no heed. Dummy smiled in his loose bewildered way, and Ben moved on. Joey Mills was scuttling down the short companion ladder. Ben wished to detain him, but Shawn had noticed Ben and called to him. Ben whispered hastily: "I've spoke with Ledyard--he'll inform you what passed between us. Tell him I said he was to do so--and wipe that surprise off your face, quick!" Ben climbed to the quarterdeck, not glancing back to see how much Joey had understood. Shawn in this reeking glare of morning light looked old. No wrinkle, no scar of smallpox was spared, and none of the white dust at his temples. His hand had a fine tremor and he needed shaving. "Mr. Ball," he said in a voice of weariness, "go below and get your breakfast." "Yea, sir--but it be'n't yet eight bells, and you'm not eat a bite since yesterday noontime." Shawn spoke with ugly patience: "I said go, and will I be explaining? I wish to speak with Cory alone." "Yea, sir." Ball made a vague motion at his forelock, and waddled past Ben with a glance of remote dislike, muttering under his breath. Shawn watched Ball's back out of sight. "Even he would desert me, had he anywhere to go. He was not so fat and sullen when he sailed with John Quelch--and escaped Quelch when I did--and listened when I told him of the western sea, and seemed, like you, to be understanding it. I suppose time's gone over all of us, and I alone faithful to the vision. Did I not say they were all phantoms, all but you and me?" "You wished to speak with me?" "Cold, cold. It's the cold good morning I get from you." "Did Judah Marsh have visions, Mr. Shawn?" "Oh, Ben, Ben! Marsh is a tool to be used, a thing with a cutting edge in the shape of a man. And Manuel is a lump of muscle, a sort of poor engine for pulling ropes, in the shape of a man, and Dummy another, with hardly even the shape. They're all phantoms, all but you and me."