A few days after the soup-spilling episode, the story approaches a major crisis. One sultry night while Billy is sleeping on the upper deck, someone awakens him by whispering a request for a rendezvous on a secluded platform overlooking the sea. The voice adds mysteriously, "There is something in the wind."
Billy complies and joins the sailor who awakens him. In the hazy starlight, Billy cannot identify the man's face, but from his general physique he recognizes him as one of the afterguardsmen.
The man states that he, like Billy, was impressed into naval service. He reports that a gang of impressed men is inviting Billy to join them. He offers two unidentified twinkiing objects as an enticement. Angered to the point of stuttering, Billy threatens to throw the traitor over the rail. The repulsed conspirator quickly disappears.
