His days in London had been cruel.

He had sought work in great commercial concerns, and had almost been grateful when rejected.

When his money was stolen, there seemed nothing to do, as he said to Michael Clones, but to become a footpad or a pirate.

Then the stormy doors of the navy had opened wide to him; and as many a man is tempted into folly or crime by tempestuous nature, so he, forlorn, spiritually unkempt, but physically and mentally well-composed, in a spirit of bravado, flung himself into the bowels of the fleet.
From the moment Dyck arrived on board the Ariadne he was a marked man.

Ferens, a disfranchised solicitor, who knew his story, spread the unwholesome truth about him among the ship's people, and he received attentions at once offensive and flattering.