, that
this is abominable? Don't you now - come - as a seaman? If he went away all this
would stop at once. Brierly said these words with a most unusual animation, and
made as if to reach after his pocket-book. I restrained him, and declared coldly
that the cowardice of these four men did not seem to me a matter of such great
importance. And you call yourself a seaman, I suppose? he pronounced angrily. I
said that's what I called myself, and I hoped I was too. He heard me out, and
made a gesture with his big arm that seemed to deprive me of my individuality,
to push me away into the crowd. The worst of it, he said, is that all you
fellows have no sense of dignity; you don't think enough of what you are
supposed to be.
    We had been walking slowly meantime, and now stopped opposite the harbour
office, in sight of the very spot from which the immense captain of the Patna
had vanished as utterly as a tiny feather blown away in a hurricane. I smiled.
Brierly went on: This is a disgrace. We've got all kinds amongst us - some
anointed scoundrels in the lot; but, hang it, we must preserve professional
decency or we become no better than so many tinkers going about loose. We are
trusted. Do you understand? - trusted! Frankly, I don't care a snap for all the
pilgrims that ever came out of Asia, but a decent man would not have behaved
like this to a full cargo of old rags in bales. We aren't an organised body of
men, and the only thing that holds us together is just the name for that kind of
decency. Such an affair destroys one's confidence. A man may go pretty near
through his whole sea-life without any call to show a stiff upper lip. But when
the call comes... Aha!... If I...
    He broke off, and in a changed tone, I'll give you two hundred rupees now,
Marlow, and you just talk to that chap. Confound him! I wish he had never come
out here. Fact is, I rather think some of my people know his. The old man's a
parson, and I remember now I met him once when staying with my cousin in Essex
last year. If I am not mistaken, the old chap seemed rather to fancy his sailor
son. Horrible. I can't do it myself
