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comparison, he said, between the lengths that a friend will go for you and the grudging obedience of a slave." Looking down from the dizzying height into the waves, he said, "I have often thought the world would do well to heed his wisdom."
"Is a ship much like a horse?" Summersgill asked, amused by the realization that this was the answer to his question. He had not yet caught the young man openly saying anything seditious. Not even critical. But such innocent lying, such halfhearted concealment of the truth beneath so obvious a metaphor! Poor Peter! He would never make much of a conspirator.
"It is like a horse, sir, in the sense that a horse is faster and stronger than a man. Only man's authority over the beast prevents him from being trampled into the dirt every time he applies the whip. In the same way, the Nimrod has seven hundred and ninety-three men, and forty-five officers, including the boys. Only our authority and the affection—or terror—in which we are held prevents the men from realizing their own strength. When they trust us and believe in us, all is well. When they don't..."
Summersgill felt for a moment as though the frail platform on which he sat had lurched toward the sea. He had been thinking of Peter's dilemma as a personal one, much like his own—the distress of a reasonable and fastidious gentleman at having to participate in a distasteful system. But there was more than disgust at play here—there was a mortal, abject dread.
The bestial faces of the sailors flashed into his mind, gazing up in silent, powerless hatred at the gold braided figures on the quarterdeck. Suppose their hatred did at last boil over? What example of restraint and kindness had they been set? It didn't bear thinking about.
"Mutiny?"
Kenyon gave him a smile as thin as a garrote. "Indeed. I must therefore do everything in my power to support the present regime. And you had best pray, sir, that the men continue terrified of their captain and in awe of their officers. Because if it ever crossed their minds that he—and we—are only human, I should not give you a farthing for our lives."
    Chapter 5
The noise pummeled her, picked her up, swept her away, tossed in the din like a doll in a mill race. Astounding, unbearable, exhilarating. The air stank of fireworks and, mysteriously, Emily wanted to laugh and laugh for the sheer glee of it. Stuffing her hands into her ears, she did so and could not hear her own voice over the thunder.
Above, a ferocious sun was beating down on deck, tar was falling from the yards in sticky rain, and it was tacky underfoot as the caulking between the deck-planks softened. Down here on the gun-deck, that sweltering heat was added to by the bursts of fire, the tons of red-hot brass, and the bodies of three hundred men, their skins shining, sweat falling onto the guns to go up in steam as soon as it touched.
Emily stood beside and a little behind Captain Walker, watching. Now that she had been put in her place and made no attempt to leave it by speaking to him, they had reached this amicable state in which both pretended the other did not exist. The pretense did not allow any familiarities to be taken, however, so just as Walker had made no concession to the weather, so Emily had not permitted herself to do so either, and at times she thought she should fall down simply from the heat. Sweat ran down her back, down her legs, making her petticoats cling suffocatingly beneath the stiffly hooped weight of her gown. Her torso itched, the creases in her shift pressed into her skin by the tight, boned stays, and the sack dress she wore on top felt heavy as armor, so that she could hardly walk or lift her arms. How the gun crews could stand it, she couldn't imagine. At the thought, in sympathy, her joy began to wear off.
These men had been awake half of the night as they trimmed and re-trimmed the sails to squeeze an extra knot of speed out of the ship, trying to make up for the time lost to the storm. They had