Well, that was one of the pretty fancies that ought to come true but
don't manage to, in this world. As for the next, there's no saying.
You passed yourself for a missionary, and if Satan has humour enough
to accept you on that ticket, a pretty figure you'll make, putting up
false prayers in hell. . . . Anyhow, you didn't make friends on board
that schooner--eh?"
"I did not," Foe answered listlessly.
"You weren't over comfortable with that crowd when you changed me for
it?"
"I was not, if that's any comfort to you."
Farrell grinned. "Of course it's a comfort to me. They sent you to
Coventry more or less; and I'll tell you the reason, if you don't
know it. There was a whisper going round the ship forward. . . .
One of the hands--it being a clear day--had heard a dog barking from
the shore. Another fancied that he had. Then a third called to mind
having heard somewhere--he couldn't remember the public, or even the
port--that when old Buck Vliet marooned his missionary he'd left a
dog with him in compassion. . . . I should tell you two gentlemen
that the yarn about Vliet and how he caught a missionary by mistake,
and how he'd short-circuited him somewhere in a holy terror, was a
kind of legend all along the coast and around the Eastern islands.
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