"And would you have reached shore?"

"Why not? Five miles--it's not much in smooth water."

"But the sharks?"

"Sharks? Black boys in West Indian ports will dive all day among them
for coppers. Sharks and whales--writers of sea stories certainly ought
to pension them. There may have been a shark who once made a meal off a
sailor, but let you or me drop over the side, and if there's one
anywhere near, he wouldn't stop racing till he was a mile away, and if
any harmless slob of a whale ever killed a sailor, be sure he did it
through fright. But that's no matter. What does matter, though"--Kieran
halted and faced the passenger--"are the men who did go over the side,
and not within swimming distance of any pleasant sandy beach either.
'Tisn't every protesting seaman who finds the boss of the line on deck
to back him up. And, what's harder, how about the men who never had the
choice of going over the side? And think of the poor creatures who got
so that in time they didn't even want to go over the side, who might
have grown into honest, free men, but who, instead of that, learned only
to live for the day when they too would have the power to make their
inferiors stand around and cringe and whine."

They paced the length of the deck twice before Kieran spoke again.

"They wonder at the decay of our merchant marine. I wonder did they ever
stop to think of what men--seamen--think of the service? In the days of
sailing ships a man going to sea met with real danger and hardship, and
they developed courage and skill and character of some kind. What