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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44497 ***
+
+THE WRECK OF THE "GROSVENOR."
+
+
+
+
+                                  THE
+                       WRECK OF THE "GROSVENOR:"
+
+                             AN ACCOUNT OF
+                    _THE MUTINY OF THE CREW AND THE
+                           LOSS OF THE SHIP_
+                   WHEN TRYING TO MAKE THE BERMUDAS.
+
+                          _IN THREE VOLUMES._
+                                VOL. I.
+
+                                LONDON:
+               SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON,
+                  CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
+                                 1877.
+
+                        (_All rights reserved._)
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+                  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
+                   STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
+
+
+
+
+THE WRECK OF THE "GROSVENOR."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+There was every appearance of a south-westerly wind. The coast of
+France, which had been standing high and shining upon the horizon on
+the port bow, and so magnified by the clear northerly air that you
+could discern, even at that distance, the dim emerald sheen of the
+upper slopes and the streaky shadows thrown by projecting points and
+elbows on the white ground, was fast fading, though the sun still stood
+within an hour of its setting beyond the bleak Foreland. The north
+wind, which had rattled us with an acre of foam at our bows right
+away down the river, and had now brought us well abreast of the Gull
+lightship, was dropping fast. There was barely enough air to keep the
+royals full, and the ship's number, which I had just hoisted at the
+peak--a string of gaudy flags which made a brilliant figure against the
+white canvas of the spanker--shook their folds sluggishly.
+
+The whole stretch of scene, from the North Foreland down to the
+vanishing French headlands miles away yonder, was lovely at that
+moment--full of the great peace of an ocean falling asleep, of gently
+moving vessels, of the solemn gathering of shadows. The town of Deal
+was upon the starboard bow, a warm cluster of houses, with a windmill
+on the green hills turning drowsily, here and there a window glittering
+with a sudden beam of light, an inclined beach in the foreground with
+groups of boats high and dry upon it, and a line of foam at its base
+which sang upon the shingle so that you could hear it plainly amid
+intervals of silence on board the ship. The evening sun shining over
+the giant brow of the South Foreland struck the grey outline of the
+cliff deep in the still water, but the clear red blaze fell far and
+wide over the dry white downs of Sandwich and the outlying plains, and
+threw the distant country into such bold relief against the blue sky
+that, from the sea, it looked close at hand, and but a short walk from
+the shore.
+
+There were three or four dozen vessels at anchor in the Downs waiting
+for a change of wind or anticipating a dead calm for some hours. A few
+others, like ourselves, were swimming stealthily over the slack tide,
+with every foot of their canvas piled upon them with the effort to
+reach safe anchorage before the wind wholly failed and the tide turned.
+A large ship, with her sails stowed and her masts and rigging showing
+with the fineness of ivory-tracing against the sky, was being towed up
+Channel, and the slapping of the water by the paddles of the tug, in
+fast capricious revolutions, was quite audible, though both ship and
+steamer were a long league distant. Here and there small boats were
+rowing away from the anchored ships for the shore. Now and again you
+could hear the faint distant choruses of seamen furling a big sail or
+paying out more cable, the _clank, clank_ of which was as pretty as
+music. Down in the east the heavens were a deep blue, flecked along the
+water line with white sails, which glowed in the sunshine like beacons.
+
+I was in a proper mood to appreciate this beautiful tranquil scene.
+I was leaving England for a long spell, and the sight of that quiet
+little town of Deal and the grand old Foreland cliffs shutting out the
+sky, and the pale white shores we had left far astern, went right to
+my heart. Well, it was just a quiet leave-taking of the old country
+without words or sobs.
+
+"The pilot means to bring up. I have just heard him tell the skipper to
+stand by for a light sou'-westerly breeze. This is a _most_ confounded
+nuisance! All hands, perhaps, in the middle watch to get under way."
+
+"I expected as much," said I, turning and confronting a short,
+squarely-built man, with a power of red hair under his chin, and a skin
+like yellow leather through thirty years exposure to sun and wind and
+dirt all over the world. This was the chief mate, Mr. Ephraim Duckling,
+confidently assumed by me to be a Yankee, though he didn't talk with
+his nose. I had looked at this gentleman with some doubt when I first
+met him in the West India Docks. He had blue eyes, with a cast in
+the port optic; this somehow made him humorous, whether or no, when
+he meant to be droll, so he had an advantage over other wits. He had
+hair so dense, coarse, and red withal, that he might have been safely
+scalped for a door-mat. His legs were short, and his body very long and
+broad, and I guessed his strength by the way his arm filled out, and
+threatened to burst up the sleeve of his coat when he bent it. So far
+he had been polite enough to me, in a mighty rough fashion indeed; and
+as to the men, there had been little occasion for him to give orders as
+yet.
+
+"I expected as much," said I. "I have been watching the coast of France
+for the last quarter of an hour, and the moisture has nearly shut it
+out altogether. I doubt if we'll fetch the Downs before the calm falls."
+
+"There's a little wind over the land, though, or that mill wouldn't be
+turning."
+
+He turned his eyes up aloft; then went to the ship's side, and looked
+over. I followed him. The clear green water was slipping slowly past,
+and now and again a string of sea-weed went by, or a big, transparent
+jelly-fish, or a great crab floating on the top of the water. A thin
+ripple shot out in a semicircle from the ship's bow, and, at all
+events, we might tell that we were moving by watching the mast of the
+Gull lightship sliding by the canvas of a vessel hull below the horizon
+to the eastward of the sands.
+
+Some of the hands were on the forecastle, looking and pointing towards
+the shore. Others stood in a group near the galley, talking with the
+cook, a fat, pale man, with flannel shirt-sleeves rolled above his
+elbows. The pigs in the long-boat grunted an accompaniment to the
+chattering of a mass of hens cooped under the long-boat. There was
+no movement in the sea, and the great sails overhead hung without
+flapping, and nothing stirred aloft but the light canvas of the royals,
+which sometimes shook against the masts lazily, and with a fine distant
+sound.
+
+The skipper stood on the weather-side of the poop, against the
+starboard quarter-boat, conversing with the pilot.
+
+Have before you a tall, well-shaped man, with iron-grey hair, a thin
+aquiline nose, a short compressed mouth, small dark eyes, which looked
+at you imperiously from under a perfect hedge of eyebrow, and whitish
+whiskers, which slanted across his cheeks; dressed in a tall hat, a
+long monkey-jacket, and square-toed boots.
+
+Captain Coxon was a decidedly good-looking man, not in the smallest
+degree approaching the conventional notion of the merchant-skipper.
+Happily, it is no condition of good seamanship that a man should have
+bow-legs, and a coppery nose, and groggy eyes; and that he should
+prefer a dish of junk to a savoury kickshaw, and screeching rum to good
+wine. I had heard before I joined the _Grosvenor_ that Coxon was a
+smart seaman, though a bully to his men. But this did not prejudice me.
+I thought I knew my duties well enough to steer clear of his temper;
+and for the rest, knowing what a seafaring life is, and how scarcely an
+hour ever comes without bringing some kind of peril of its own, I would
+rather any day take service under a Bashaw who knew his work, than a
+mild-natured creature who didn't.
+
+The pilot was a little dusky-faced man, with great bushy whiskers, and
+a large chocolate-coloured shawl round his throat, though we were in
+August. I was watching these two men talking, when Duckling said--
+
+"It's my belief that we shall have trouble with those fellows forward.
+When we trimmed sail off the North Foreland did you notice how they
+went to work?"
+
+"Yes, I did. And I'll tell you what's the matter. As I was going
+forward after dinner, the cook stopped me, and told me the men were
+grumbling at the provisions. He said that some of the pork served out
+stunk, and the bread was mouldy and full of weevils."
+
+"Oh, is that it!" said Duckling. "Wait till I get them to sea, and I'll
+give them my affidavit now, if they like, that _then_ they'll have
+something to cry over. There's a Portugee fellow among them, and no
+ship's company can keep honest when one of those devils comes aboard.
+He'll always find out something that's wrong, and turn and tumble it
+about until it sets all hands on fire."
+
+He went to the break of the poop and leaned, with his arms squarely
+set, upon the brass rail, and stared furiously at the group of men
+about the galley. Some of them grew uneasy, and edged away and got
+round to the other side of the galley; others, of those who remained,
+folded their arms and stared at him back, and one of them laughed,
+which put him in a passion at once.
+
+"You lazy hounds!" he bellowed in a voice of thunder, "have you
+nothing to get about? Some of you get that cable range there more over
+to windward. You, there, get some scrubbing-brushes and clean the
+long-boat's bottom. Forecastle, there, come down out of that and see
+that your halliards are clear for running! I'll teach you to palaver
+the cook, you grumbling villains!" and he made a movement so full of
+menace that the most obstinate-looking of the fellows got life into
+them at once, and bustled about.
+
+I looked at the skipper to see what he thought of this little outbreak;
+but neither he nor the pilot paid the smallest attention to it: only,
+when Duckling had made an end, the pilot gave an order which was
+repeated by the chief mate with lungs of brass--
+
+"Aft here, and clew up the mainsail and furl it!"
+
+The men threw down the scrubbing-brushes and chain-hooks which they
+had picked up, and came aft to the main-deck in a most surly fashion.
+Duckling eyed them like a mastiff a cat. I noticed some smart-looking
+hands among them, but they all to a man put on a lubberly air; and as
+they hauled upon the various ropes which snug a ship's canvas upon the
+yard preparatory to its being furled, I heard them putting all manner
+of coarse, violent expressions, having reference to the ship and her
+officers, into their songs.
+
+They went up aloft slowly and laid out along the yard, grumbling
+furiously. And to show what bad sailors they were, I suppose, they
+stowed the sail villainously, leaving bits of the leech sticking out,
+and making a bunt that must have blown out to the first cap-full of
+wind.
+
+I was rather of opinion that Duckling's behaviour was founded on
+traditions which had been surrendered years ago by British seamen to
+Yankee skippers and mates. He had sailed a voyage in this ship with
+Coxon, and the captain therefore knew his character. That Coxon should
+abet Duckling's behaviour towards the men by his silence, was a bad
+augury. I reckoned that they understood each other, and that the whole
+ship's company, including myself, might expect a very uncomfortable
+voyage.
+
+Meanwhile, Duckling waited until the men were off the yard and
+descending the rigging: he then roared out, "Furl the mainsail!"
+
+The men stopped coming down, and looked at the yard and then at
+Duckling; and one of them said, in a sullen tone, "It is furled."
+
+I was amazed to see Duckling hop off the deck on to the poop-rail and
+spring up the rigging: I thought that he was going to thrash the man
+who had answered: and the man evidently thought so too, for he turned
+pale, and edged sideways along the ratline on which he stood, whilst he
+held one of his hands clenched. Up went Duckling, shaking the shrouds
+violently with his ungainly, sprawling way of climbing, and making the
+men dance upon the ratlines. In a moment he had swung himself upon
+the foot-rope and was casting off the yard-arm gaskets. I don't think
+half a dozen men could have loosed the sail in the time taken by him
+to do so. Down it fell, and down he came, hand over fist along the
+main-topsail sheets against the mainmast, bounded up the poop-ladder,
+and without loss of breath, roared out, "Furl the mainsail!"
+
+The men seemed inclined to disobey: some of them had already reached
+the bulwark: but another bellow, accompanied by a gesture, appeared to
+decide them. They mounted slowly, got upon the yard, and this time did
+the job in a sailor-like fashion.
+
+"I'm only beginning with them," he said in his rough voice to me; and
+then glanced at Coxon, who gave him a nod and a smile.
+
+The pilot now told me to go forward and see everything ready for
+bringing up. We were drawing close to the Downs, but the air had quite
+died out and the sea stretched like oil to the horizon. I don't know
+what was giving us way, for the light sails aloft hung flat, and the
+smoke of a steamboat with its two funnels only showing away across the
+Channel, went straight up into the sky. There must, however, have been
+a faint, imperceptible tide running, but it took us another half-hour
+to reach the point where the pilot had resolved to bring up, and by
+that time the sun had sunk behind the great headland beyond Deal, and
+was casting a broad crimson glare upon the further sea.
+
+The royals and top-gallant sails were clewed up and furled, and then
+the order was given to let go the topsail halliards. Down came the
+three heavy yards rumbling along the masts, with the sound of chain
+rattling over sheaves. The canvas fell into festoons, and the pilot
+called, "All ready forrard?"
+
+"All ready."
+
+"Let go the anchor."
+
+"Stand clear of the cable!" I shouted.
+
+Whack! whack! went the carpenter's driving hammer. A moment's pause,
+then a tremendous splash, and the cable rushed with a hoarse outcry
+through the hawser hole.
+
+When this job was over I waited on the forecastle to superintend the
+stowing of the sails forward. The men worked briskly enough, and I
+heard one of them who was stowing the fore-topmast stay-sail say "that
+it was good luck the skipper had brought up. He didn't think he'd be
+such a fool."
+
+This set me wondering what their meaning could be; but I thought it
+best to take no notice nor repeat what I had heard, as I considered
+that the less Mr. Duckling had to say to the men the better we should
+all get on.
+
+It was half-past seven by the time the sails were furled and the decks
+cleared of the ropes. The hands went below to tea, and I was walking
+aft when the cook came out of the galley and said--
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir; would you mind tasting of this?" And he handed
+me a bit of the ship's biscuit. I smelt it and found it mouldy, and put
+a piece in my mouth, but soon spat it out.
+
+"I can't say much for this, cook," said I.
+
+"It's not fit for dogs," replied the cook. "But, so far as I've seen,
+all the provisions is the same. The sugar's like mud, and the molasses
+is full of grit; and though I've been to sea man and boy two and twenty
+year, I never saw tea like what they've got on board this ship. It
+ain't tea--it makes the liquor yaller. It's shavings, and wot I say is,
+regular tea _ain't_ shavings."
+
+"Well, let the men complain to the captain," I answered. "He can report
+to the owners and get the ship's stores condemned."
+
+"It's my belief they wos condemned afore they came on board," answered
+the cook. "I'll bet any man a week's grog that they wos bought cheap in
+a dockyard sale o' rotten grub, by order o' the Admiralty."
+
+"Give me a biscuit," said I, "and I'll show it to the captain."
+
+He took one out from a drawer in which he kept the dough for the
+cuddy's use, and I put it in my pocket and went aft.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+I will here pause to describe the ship which, being the theatre of much
+that befel me which is related in this book, I should place before your
+eyes in as true a picture as I can draw.
+
+The _Grosvenor_, then, was a small, full-rigged ship of five hundred
+tons, painted black, with a single white streak below her bulwarks. She
+was a soft-wood vessel, built in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her lines were
+very perfect. Indeed, the beauty of her hull, her lofty masts, stayed
+with as great perfection as a man-of-war's, her graceful figure-head,
+sharp yacht-like bows and round stern, had filled me with admiration
+when I first beheld her. Her decks were white and well kept. She had a
+poop and a top-gallant forecastle, both of which I think the builder
+might have spared, as she was scarcely big enough for them. There was
+a good deal of brass-work on her after-decks, and more expense than
+she deserved, from the perishable nature of the material of which
+she was constructed, had been lavished upon her in respect of deck
+ornamentation. Her richly carved wheel, brass belaying-pins, brass
+capstan, brass binnacle, handsome skylights, and other such details
+made her look like a gay pleasure-vessel rather than a sober trader.
+Her cuddy, however, was plain enough, containing six cabins, including
+the pantry. The woodwork was cheaply varnished mahogany; a fixed table
+ran from the mizzen-mast to within a few feet of the cuddy front, and
+on either side this table was a stout hair-covered bench. Abaft the
+mizzen-mast were the two cabins respectively occupied by Captain Coxon
+and Mr. Duckling. My own cabin was just under the break of the poop,
+so that from the window in it I could look out upon the main-deck. A
+couple of broad skylights, well protected with brass wire-fenders, let
+plenty of light into the cuddy; and swinging trays and lamps, and red
+curtains to draw across the skylights when the sun beat upon them,
+completed the furniture of this part of the vessel.
+
+We could very well have carried a few passengers, and I never learned
+why we did not; but it may, perhaps, have happened that nobody was
+going our way at the time we were advertised to sail.
+
+We were bound to Valparaiso with a general cargo, consisting chiefly
+of toys, hardware, Birmingham and Sheffield cutlery, and metal
+goods, and a stock of pianofortes. The ship, to my thinking, was too
+deep, as though the owners had compensated themselves for the want
+of passenger-money by "taking it out" in freight. I readily foresaw
+that we should be a wet ship, and that we should labour, more than was
+comfortable, in a heavy sea. The steerage was packed with light goods,
+bird-cages and such things, but space was left in the 'tween decks,
+though the cargo came flush with the deck in the hold.
+
+However, in spite of being overloaded, the _Grosvenor_ had beaten
+everything coming down the river that day. Just off the Reculvers, for
+example, when we had drawn the wind a trifle more abeam, we overhauled
+a steamer. She was pretty evidently a fast screw, and her people grew
+jealous when they saw us coming up astern, and piled up the fires, but
+could not stop us from dropping her, as neatly as _she_ dropped an old
+coal brig that was staggering near the shore under dirty canvas. But
+she smothered us with her smoke as we passed her to leeward, and I dare
+say they were glad to see the dose we got for our pains.
+
+I came aft, as I have said, after leaving the baker, with the biscuit
+in my pocket, and got upon the poop. The skipper had gone below with
+the pilot, and they were having tea. Duckling was walking the poop,
+swearing now and again at a couple of ordinary seamen, whom he had set
+to work to flemish-coil the ropes along the deck, for no other reason
+than that he might put as much work upon them as he could invent--for
+this flemish-coiling was of no use under the circumstances, and is only
+fit for Sundays on passenger ships when you want to please the ladies
+with "tidy" effects, or when a vessel is in port. A watch had been
+set forward, and having cast a look up aloft to see that everything
+was trim, I went down the companion-ladder to the cuddy, followed by
+Duckling.
+
+The interior of the cabin looked like some old Dutch painting, for the
+plain mahogany woodwork gave the place an antique air. The lamps were
+alight, for it was dusk here, though daylight was still abroad upon the
+sea; and the lamplight imparted a grave, old-fashioned colouring to the
+things it shone upon. The skipper sat near the mizzen-mast, stirring
+the sugar in a cup of tea. He looked better without than with his hat;
+his forehead was high, though rather peaked, and his iron-grey hair,
+parted amid-ships and brushed carelessly over his ears, gave him a
+look of dignity. The coarse little pilot was eating bread and butter
+voraciously, his great whiskers moving as he worked his jaws.
+
+Duckling and I seated ourselves at the table, and I had some difficulty
+to prevent myself from laughing at the odd figures Duckling and the
+pilot made side by side--the one with his whiskers working like a pair
+of brushes, and the other with that door-mat of red hair on his head,
+and the puzzling cast of the eye that made me always doubt which one I
+should address when I tried to look him full in the face.
+
+"There's a breeze coming from the sou'-west, sir," said Duckling to the
+captain. "The water's darkish out in that quarter, but I don't think
+there's enough of it to swing the ship."
+
+"Let it come favourable, and we'll get under way at once," answered
+Coxon. "I had a spell of this sort of thing last year--for ten days,
+wasn't it, Duckling?--because I neglected a light air that sprang up
+south-easterly. I thought it couldn't have held ten minutes, but it
+would have carried me well away to the French side before it failed,
+and made me a free passage down, for the wind came fresh from south by
+west and dead-locked me here. Mr. Royle, what's going forwards among
+the men? I heard them cursing pretty freely when they were up aloft."
+
+"They are complaining of the ship's provisions, sir," I replied. "The
+cook gave me a biscuit just now, and I promised to show it to you."
+
+Saying which, I pulled the biscuit out of my pocket and put it upon the
+table. He contracted his bushy eyebrows, and, without looking at the
+biscuit, stared angrily at me.
+
+"Hark you, Mr. Royle," said he, in a voice I found detestable for the
+sneering contempt it conveyed. "I allow no officer that sails under me
+to become a confidant of my crew. Do you understand?"
+
+I flushed up as I answered that I was no confidant of the crew: that
+the cook had stopped me to explain the men's grievance, and that I had
+asked him for a biscuit to show the captain as a sample of the ship's
+bread which the steward was serving out.
+
+"It's very good bread," said the obsequious pilot, taking up the
+biscuit whilst he wiped the butter out of the corners of his mouth.
+
+"Eat it, then!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Damnation! eat it yourself!" cried Coxon, furiously. "You're used to
+that kind of fare, I should think, and like it, or you wouldn't be
+bringing it into the cuddy in your pocket, would you, sir?"
+
+I made him no answer. I could see by the expression in Duckling's
+face that he sided with the skipper, and I thought it would be a bad
+look-out for me to begin the voyage with a quarrel.
+
+"I'll trouble you to put that biscuit where you took it from," the
+captain continued, with an enraged nod in the direction of my pocket,
+"and return it to the blackguard who gave it, and tell him to present
+Captain Coxon's respects to the men, and inform them that if they
+object to the ship's bread, they're welcome to take their meals along
+with the pigs in the long-boat. The butcher 'll serve them."
+
+"Mr. Royle tells me they find the meat worse than the bread," said Mr.
+Duckling. "I guess the hounds who grumble most are men who have shipped
+out of workhouses, where their grub was burnt burgoo twice a day, and a
+lick of brimstone to make it easy."
+
+He laughed loudly at his own humour, and was joined by the pilot, who
+rubbed his hands and swore that he hadn't heard a better joke for
+years.
+
+I made what despatch I might with my tea, not much desiring to remain
+in company with Coxon in his present temper. I fancy he grew a little
+ashamed of himself presently, for he softened his voice and now and
+again glanced across at me. The pilot, looking up through the skylight,
+called attention to the vane at the main-royal masthead, which was
+fluttering to a light air from the south-west, as had been predicted,
+and as I could tell by referring to the tell-tale compass, which was
+swung just over where Coxon was seated. Then Coxon and his chief mate
+talked of the time they meant to occupy in the run to Valparaiso. I
+understood the former to say that his employers had given him eight
+weeks to do it in. I should like to have said that had they added
+another two to that, they would still have been imposing enough upon us
+all to keep us alive. But at this point I quitted the table, giving
+Coxon a bow as I rose, which he returned with a sort of half-ashamed
+stiffness, and repaired to my cabin to get my pipe for a half-hour's
+enjoyment of the beautiful autumn evening on deck.
+
+I don't think tobacco has the same flavour ashore that it has at sea.
+Something in the salt air brings out the full richness and aroma of it.
+A few whiffs on the main-deck came like oil upon the agitation of my
+mind, ruffled by Coxon's impertinence and temper. I stepped on to the
+forecastle to see that the riding-lamps were all right, and that there
+was a man on the look-out. The crew were in the forecastle talking in
+subdued voices, and the hot air that came up through the fore-scuttle
+was intolerable as I passed it. I then regained the poop, and seated
+myself on the rail among the shadows of the backstays leading from the
+main-royal and top-gallant masts.
+
+The sun had gone down some time now, and only faint traces of daylight
+lowered in the westward. The light on the South Foreland emitted a
+most beautiful, clear, and brilliant beam, and diffused a broad area
+of misty radiance on the land around. The light-beacons were winking
+along the Goodwin Sands, and pretty close at hand were the lights of
+Deal, a pale, fine constellation, which made the country all the darker
+for their presence. The moon would not rise until after nine, but
+the heavens were spangled with stars, some so lustrous that the calm
+sea mirrowed them in cones of silver; and from time to time flashing
+shooting-stars chased across the sky, and with their blue fires offered
+a peculiar contrast to the eye with the yellow and red lights on the
+water.
+
+There was a little air moving from the southward, but so light as
+scarcely to be noticeable to any man but a sailor awaiting a change.
+The vessels at anchor near us loomed large in the starlit gloom that
+overspread the face of the sea. Lights flitted upon them; and the
+voices of men singing, the jingling of a concertina or a fiddle, the
+rumbling of yards lowered aboard some new-comers which could not be
+descried, and now and again the measured splash of oars, were sounds
+which only served to give a deeper intensity to the solemn calm of the
+night.
+
+The inmates of the cuddy still kept their seats, and their voices came
+out through the open skylights. I heard Captain Coxon say--
+
+"I should like to know what sort of a fellow they have given me for a
+second mate. He strikes me as coming the gentleman a trifle, don't he,
+Duckling?"
+
+To which the other replied, "He seems a civil-spoken young man, and up
+to his work. But I guess there's too much molasses mixed with his blood
+to suit my book. He wants a New Orleans training, as my old skipper
+used to say. Do you know what that means, sir?" evidently addressing
+the pilot. "Well, it means a knife in your ribs when you're not
+disposed to hurry, and a knuckle-duster in the shape of a marlin-spike
+down your throat if you stop to arguefy."
+
+The pilot laughed and said, "Here's your health, sir. Men of your kind
+are wanted nowadays, sir."
+
+It was plain from this speech that the pilot had exchanged his tea for
+something stronger. The captain here began to speak, but I couldn't
+catch his words, though I strained my ears, as I was anxious to gain
+all the insight I could into his character that I might know how to
+shape my behaviour.
+
+I say this for a very weighty reason--I was entirely dependent on the
+profession I had adopted. I knew it was in the power of any captain I
+sailed with to injure me, and perhaps ruin my prospects. Everything
+in seafaring life depends upon reports and testimonials; and in these
+days, when the demand for officers is utterly disproportionate to the
+immense supply, owners are only too willing to listen to objections,
+and take any skipper's word as an excuse to decline your services or
+get rid of you.
+
+Neither the captain nor Mr. Duckling appeared on deck again. The pilot
+came up shortly after one bell (half-past eight) and looked about
+him for a few minutes. The tide had swung the ship with her stern up
+Channel. He went and looked over the side, and then had a stare at
+Deal, but took no notice of me, whom he could very plainly see, and
+returned below.
+
+I lingered three quarters of an hour on deck, during which time the
+little sigh of wind that had come from the south-west died out, and a
+most perfect calm fell. The larger stars burned with amazing brilliancy
+and power, and I thought it possible that the wind might go to the
+eastward. This idea detained me on deck longer than I had meant to
+stop, as I thought it would do me no ill service if I should be the
+first to report a fair wind to the skipper, and show myself smart in
+getting the hands up. Perhaps the moon would bring a breeze with her,
+and as she rose at twenty minutes past nine, I filled another pipe to
+await her coming.
+
+As I struck a match, the steward came half-way up the poop-ladder to
+tell me that the spirits were on the table.
+
+"Did the captain send you?" I asked.
+
+"No, sir," he answered. "I thought I'd let you know, as they'll be
+cleared away after nine, and my orders are not to serve them again when
+once they're stowed away for the night. That's the captain's rule."
+
+"All right," said I. Another time I should have gone below and had
+my glass of grog; but I considered it my best policy to keep clear
+of Coxon until the temper that had been excited by my unfortunate
+production of the ship's biscuit was cooled down.
+
+I took some turns along the deck, and shortly after nine one of the
+lamps in the cuddy was extinguished, and on looking through the
+skylight I found that the three men had left the table. There was a
+man pacing to and fro the forecastle, and I could just make out his
+figure against the stars which gleamed and throbbed right down to the
+horizon. The rest of the crew had evidently turned in, for I heard no
+voices, and now that the talking which had been going on in the cuddy
+no longer vexed the ear with rough accents, a profound silence and
+peace came down upon the ship. Around me, the anchored vessels gloomed
+like phantoms; the sea unrolled its dark, unbreathing surface into the
+visionary distances; nothing sounded from the shore but the murmur of
+the summer surf upon the shingle. One might have said that the spirit
+of life had departed from the earth; that nothing lived but the stars,
+which looked down upon a scene as impalpable and elusive as a dream.
+
+At last uprose the moon. She made her coming apparent by paling the
+stars in the southern sky, then by projecting a white mist of light
+over the horizon. Anon her upper limb, red as fire, jetted upwards,
+and the full orb, vast and feverish as the setting sun, sailed out
+of the sea, most slowly and solemnly, lifting with her a black mist
+that belted her like a circle of smoke: this vanished, and by degrees,
+perceptible to the eye, her colour changed; the red chastened into
+pearl, her disc grew smaller, and soon she was well above the horizon,
+shining with a most clear and silvery splendour, and making the sea
+beneath her lustrous with mild light. But not a breath of air followed
+her coming. The ships in the Downs caught the new light, and their
+yards showed like streaks of pearl against the night. The red lights of
+the Goodwin Sands dwindled before the pure, far-reaching radiance into
+mere floating sparks of fire. The heavens were cloudless, and the sea
+a wonderful calm. I might keep watch all night, and still have nothing
+to report; so, knocking the ashes out of my pipe, I descended the
+poop-ladder and entered my cabin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+I had slung a cot, although there was a good mahogany bunk in the
+cabin. No sensible person would sleep in a bunk at sea when he could
+swing in a hammock or cot. Suppose the bunk is athwart-ship: when the
+vessel goes about you must shift your pillow; and very often she will
+go about in your watch below and catch you asleep, so that when you
+wake you find your feet are in the air, and all the blood in your body
+in your head. When I first went to sea I slept in a 'thwartship bunk.
+The ship was taken aback one night when I was asleep, and they came and
+roared, "All hands shorten sail!" down the booby hatch. I heard the
+cry and tried to get out of my bed, but my head was jammed to leeward
+by the weight of my body, and I could not move. Had the ship foundered,
+I should have gone to the bottom, in bed, helpless. Always after that I
+slept in a hammock.
+
+The watch on deck had orders to call the captain if a change of wind
+came; also I knew that the pilot would be up, sniffing about, off and
+on, through the night: so I turned in properly and slept soundly until
+two; when, waking up, I drew on my small clothes and went on deck,
+where I found Duckling mousing about in the moonshine in a pair of
+yellow flannel drawers, he having, like myself, come up to see if any
+wind was stirring. He looked like a new kind of monkey in his tight
+white rig and immense head of hair. "No wind, no wind," he muttered, in
+a sleepy grumble, and then went below with a run, nearly tumbling, in
+fact, head over heels down the companion-ladder.
+
+I took a turn forward to see if the riding lights burned well and
+the man on the look-out was awake. The decks were wet with dew, and
+the moon was now hanging over the South Foreland. The sky was still
+cloudless, and not a breath of air to be felt. This being the case, I
+went back to my cot.
+
+When I next awoke I found my cot violently swinging. I thought for the
+moment that we were under way and in a heavy sea; but on looking over
+I saw Mr. Duckling, who exclaimed, "Out with you, Mr. Royle! There's a
+good breeze from the east'ards. Look alive and call the boatswain to
+pipe all hands."
+
+Hearing this, I was wide awake at once, and in a few minutes was making
+my way to the boatswain's cabin, a deck-house on the port side against
+the forecastle. He and the carpenter were fast asleep in bunks placed
+one over the other. I laid hold of the boatswain's leg, which hung over
+the bunk--both he and the carpenter had turned in "all standing," as
+they say at sea--and shook it. His great brown hairy face came out of
+the bolster in which it was buried; he then threw over his other leg
+and sat upright.
+
+"All hands, sir?"
+
+"Yes; look sharp, bo'sun."
+
+He was about to speak, but stopped short and said, "Ay, ay, sir;"
+whereupon I hurried aft.
+
+It was twenty minutes past five by the clock in the cuddy. The sun had
+been risen half an hour, and was already warming the decks. But there
+was a fine breeze--not from the eastward, as Duckling had said, but
+well to the northward of east--which brought ripe, fresh morning smells
+from the land with it, and made the water run in little leaps of foam
+against the ship's side.
+
+Captain Coxon and the pilot were both on the poop, and as I came up the
+former called out--
+
+"Is the boatswain awake yet?"
+
+"Yes, sir," I answered, and dived into my cabin to finish dressing. I
+heard the boatswain's pipe sound, followed by the roar of his voice
+summoning the hands to weigh anchor. My station was on the forecastle,
+and thither I went. But none of the hands had emerged as yet, the
+only man seen being the fellow on the look-out. All about us the
+outward-bound vessels were taking advantage of the wind: some of them
+were already standing away, others were sheeting home their canvas; the
+clanking of the windlasses was incessant, and several Deal boats were
+driving under their lugs among the shipping.
+
+"Mr. Royle," cried out the captain, "jump below, will you, and see what
+those fellows are about."
+
+I went to the fore-scuttle and peered into it, bawling, "Below there!"
+
+"There's no use singing out," said a voice; "we don't mean to get the
+ship under way until you give us something fit to eat."
+
+"Who was that who spoke?" I called. "Show yourself, my man."
+
+A fellow came and stood under the fore-scuttle, and looking up, said in
+a bold, defiant way--
+
+"_I_ spoke--'Bill Marling, able seaman.'"
+
+"Am I to tell the captain that you refuse to turn to?"
+
+"Ay, and tell him we'd rather have six months of chokee than one
+mouthful of his damned provisions," he answered; and immediately a lot
+of voices took up the theme, and as I left the forecastle to deliver
+the message, I heard the men cursing and abusing us all violently, the
+foreigners particularly--that is, the Portuguese and a Frenchman, who
+was half a negro--swearing in the worst English words and worst English
+pronunciation, shrilly and fiercely.
+
+Coxon pretty well knew what was coming. He and Duckling stood together
+on the poop, and I delivered the men's message from the quarter-deck.
+
+Coxon was in a great rage and quite pale with it. The expression in
+his face was really devilish. His lips became bloodless, and when he
+glanced his eyes around and saw the other ships taking advantage of
+the fine breeze and sailing away, he seemed deprived of speech. He had
+sense enough, however, with all his fury, to know that in this case no
+good could come from passion. He seized the brass rail with both hands,
+and made a gesture with his head to signify that I should draw nearer.
+
+"Who was the man who gave you that message, sir?"
+
+"A fellow who called himself Bill Marling."
+
+"Do they refuse to leave the forecastle?"
+
+"They refuse to get the ship under way."
+
+"Is the boatswain disaffected?"
+
+"No, sir; but I fancy he knows the men's minds."
+
+He turned to Mr. Duckling.
+
+"If the boatswain is sound, we four ought to be able to make the
+scoundrels turn to."
+
+This was like suggesting a hand to hand fight--four against twelve, and
+Duckling had the sense to hold his tongue. The boatswain was standing
+near the long-boat, looking aft, and Coxon suddenly called to him,
+"Lead the men aft."
+
+I now thought proper to get upon the poop; and in a short time the men
+came aft in twos and threes. They were thirteen in all, including the
+carpenter, four ordinary seamen, the cook, and the cook's mate. The
+boatswain kept forward.
+
+There was a capstan just abaft the mainmast, and here the men
+assembled. There was not much in the situation to move one's gravity,
+and yet I could scarcely forbear smiling when I looked down upon
+their faces fraught with expressions so various in kind, though all
+denoting the same feelings. Some were regular old stagers, fellows who
+had been to sea all their lives, with great bare arms tattooed with
+crucifixes, bracelets, and other such devices, in canvas or blanket
+breeches and flannel shirts, with the invariable belt and knife around
+their middle. Some, to judge from their clothes, had evidently signed
+articles in an almost destitute condition, their clothes being complete
+suits of patches, and their faces pale and thin. The foreigners were,
+of course, excessively dirty; and the "Portugee's" wonderfully ugly
+countenance was hardly improved by the stout silver earrings with which
+his long ears were ornamented.
+
+The first movement of mirth in me, however, was but transient. Pity
+came uppermost in a few moments. I do think there is something touching
+in the simplicity of sailors, in the childlike way in which they go
+about to explain a grievance and get it redressed. They have few words
+and little experience outside the monotonous life they follow; they
+express themselves ill, are subdued by a harsh discipline on board,
+or by acts of cruelty which could not be tolerated in any kind of
+service ashore; the very negroes and savages of distant countries have
+more interest taken in them by the people of England than sailors,
+for whom scarcely a charity exists; the laws which deal with their
+insubordination are unnecessarily severe; and of the persons who are
+appointed to inquire into the causes of insubordination, scarce five in
+the hundred are qualified by experience, sympathy, or disinterestedness
+to do sailors justice.
+
+Some such thoughts as these were in my mind as I stood watching the men
+on the quarter-deck.
+
+Coxon, with his hands still clutching the rail, said, "The boatswain
+has piped you out to get the ship under way. Do you refuse?"
+
+The man named Bill Marling made a step forward. The men had evidently
+constituted him spokesman.
+
+"We don't mean to work this here ship," said he, "until better food is
+put aboard. The biscuits are not fit for dogs; and I say that the pork
+stinks, and that the molasses is grits."
+
+"That's the truth," said a voice; and the Portuguese nodded and
+gesticulated violently.
+
+"You blackguards!" burst out the captain, losing all self-control.
+"What do you know about food for dogs? You're not as good as dogs to
+know. Aren't you shipped out of filthy Ratcliffe Highway lodgings,
+where the ship's bread and meat and molasses would be eaten by you
+as damned fine luxuries, you lubbers? Turn to at once and man the
+windlass, or I'll find a way to make you!"
+
+"We say," said the spokesman, pulling a biscuit out of his bosom and
+holding it up, "that we don't mean to work the ship until you give us
+better bread than this. It's mouldy and full of weevils. Put the bread
+in the sun, and see the worms crawl out of it."
+
+"Will the skipper pitch the cuddy bread overboard and eat ourn?"
+demanded a voice.
+
+"And the cuddy meat along with it!" exclaimed a man, a short,
+powerfully built fellow with a crisp black beard and woolly hair,
+holding up a piece of pork on the blade of a knife. "Let Captain Coxon
+smell this."
+
+The captain looked at them for a few moments with flashing eyes, then
+turned and walked right aft with Duckling. Here they were joined by
+the pilot, and a discussion took place among them that lasted some
+minutes. Meanwhile I paced to and fro athwart the poop. The men talked
+in low tones among themselves, but none of them seemed disposed to give
+in. For my own part, I rather fancied that though their complaint
+of the provisions was justifiable enough, it was advanced rather as
+a sound excuse for declining to sail with a skipper and chief mate
+whose behaviour so far towards them was a very mild suggestion of the
+treatment they might expect when they should be fairly at sea, and in
+these two men's power. I heard my name mentioned among them and one
+or two remarks made about me, but not uncomplimentary. The cook had
+probably told them I was well-disposed, and I believe that some of them
+would have harangued me had I appeared willing to listen.
+
+Presently Mr. Duckling left the captain and ordered the men to go
+forward. He then called the boatswain, and turning to me, said that I
+was to be left in charge of the ship with the pilot whilst he and the
+captain went ashore.
+
+The boatswain came aft and got into the quarter-boat which Duckling and
+I lowered; and I then towed her by her painter to the gangway, where
+Duckling and the captain got into her.
+
+As no signal was hoisted I was at a loss to conceive what course
+Captain Coxon proposed to adopt. Duckling and the boatswain each took
+an oar while Coxon steered, and away they went, sousing over the little
+waves which the fresh land breeze had set running along the water.
+
+By this time all the outward-bound ships had got their anchors up, and
+were standing down Channel. Some of them which had got away smartly
+were well around the Foreland, and we were the only one of them all
+that still kept the ground. Captain Coxon's rage and disappointment
+were, of course, intelligible enough; for time to him was not only
+money, but credit--I mean that every day he could save in making the
+run to Valparaiso would improve him in his employers' estimation.
+
+The men peered over the bulwarks at the departing boat, wondering
+what the skipper would do. There was a tide running to the southward,
+and they had to keep the boat heading towards Sandwich. Strong as the
+boatswain was, I could see what a much stronger oar Duckling pulled by
+the way the boat's head swerved under his strokes.
+
+I stood watching them for some time and then joined the pilot, who had
+lighted a pipe and sat smoking on the taffrail. He gave me a civil nod,
+being well-disposed enough now that Coxon was not by, and made some
+remark about the awkwardness of the men refusing work when the breeze
+was so good.
+
+"True," said I; "but I think you'll find that the magistrates will give
+it in their favour. There's some mistake about the ship's stores. Such
+bread as the men have had served out to them ought never to have been
+put on board, and the steward has owned to me that it's all alike."
+
+"The captain don't intend to let it come before the magistrates,"
+answered the pilot with a wink, and pulling his pipe from his mouth
+to inspect the bowl. "He wants to be off, and means to telegraph for
+another crew and turn those fellows yonder adrift."
+
+"Won't he ship some better provisions?"
+
+"I don't know, sir. Preehaps he's satisfied that the provisions is
+good enough for the men, and preehaps he isn't. Leastways he'll not be
+persuaded contrarily to his belief."
+
+"So, then, the police are to have nothing to do with this matter, and
+the stores will be retained for another crew?"
+
+"That's as it may be."
+
+"There will be a mutiny before we get to Valparaiso."
+
+"Something 'll happen, I dare say."
+
+I not only considered the captain's behaviour in this matter bad
+morally, but extremely impolitic. His motives were plain enough. The
+stores had been shipped as a cheap lot for the men to eat; and I dare
+say the understanding between Coxon and the owners was that the stores
+should not be changed. This view would account for his going on shore
+to telegraph for a new crew, since sending the old crew about their
+business would promise a cheaper issue than signalling for the police
+and bringing the offenders before the magistrates, and causing the
+vessel to be detained while inquiries were made. But that he would be
+imperilling the safety of his vessel by shipping a fresh crew without
+exchanging the bad stores for good was quite certain, and I wondered
+that so old a sailor as he should be such a fool as not to foresee some
+disastrous end to his own or his owners' contemptible cheese-paring
+policy.
+
+However, I had not so good an opinion of the pilot's taciturnity as to
+make him my confidant in these thoughts; we talked on other matters for
+a few minutes and he then went below, and after a while, on passing the
+skylight, I saw him stretched on one of the cuddy benches sound asleep.
+
+The Downs now presented a very different appearance from what they had
+exhibited an hour before. There were not above four vessels at anchor,
+and of those which had filled and stood away scarce half a dozen were
+in sight. These were some lumbering old brigs with a barque among them,
+with the water almost level with their decks; picturesque enough,
+however, in the glorious morning light, as they went washing solemnly
+away, showing their square sterns to the wind. A prettier sight was a
+fine schooner yacht coming up fast from the southward, with her bow
+close to the wind; and over to the eastward the sea was alive with
+smacks, their sails shining like copper, standing apparently for the
+North Sea.
+
+The land all about Walmer was of an exquisite soft green, and in the
+breezy summer light Deal looked the quaintest, snuggest little town in
+the world.
+
+A little after eight the steward called me down to breakfast, where I
+found the pilot impatiently sniffing an atmosphere charged with the
+aroma of broiled ham and strong coffee. I own, as I helped myself
+to a rasher and contrasted the good provisions with which the cuddy
+table was furnished with the bad food served to the men, that I was
+weak enough to sympathize very cordially with the poor fellows. The
+steward told me that not a man among them had broken his fast; this he
+had been told by the cook, who added that the men would rather starve
+than eat the biscuit that had been served out to them. Such was their
+way of showing themselves wronged; and the steward declared that he
+did not half like bringing our breakfast from the galley, for the men,
+when they smelt the ham and saw him going aft with a tin of hot rolls,
+became so forcible in their language that he every moment, during his
+walk along the main-deck, expected to feel himself seized behind and
+pitched overboard.
+
+"It's the old story, sir," said the pilot, who was making an immense
+breakfast, "and it's true enough what Mr. Duckling said last night,
+which I thought uncommonly good. They ship sailors out of places where
+there's nothing to be seen but rags and rum--rum and rags, sir; they
+give 'em a good cabin to live in, pounds sterling a month, grog every
+day at eight bells, plenty of good livin', considering what they was,
+where they come from, and what they desarves: and what do they do but
+turn up their noses at food which they'd crawl upon their knees to get
+in their kennels ashore, and swear that they won't do ne'er a stroke of
+work unless they're bribed by the very best of everything. What do they
+want?--lobsters for breakfast, and wenison and plum-duff for dinner,
+and chops and tamater sauce for supper? It's the ruination of owners,
+sir, are these here new-fangled ideas; and I don't say--mind, I don't
+say that it don't go agin pilots as a body. A pilot can't do his dooty
+as he ought when he's got such crews as sarve nowadays to order about.
+Here am I stuck here, with a job that I knows of waitin' and waitin'
+for me at Gravesend. And all because this blessed ship's company wants
+wenison and plum-duff for dinner!"
+
+He helped himself to a large slice of broiled ham and devoured it with
+sullen energy.
+
+I could have said a word for the men, but guessed that my remarks would
+be repeated to the skipper; and since I could not benefit them, there
+was no use in injuring myself.
+
+After breakfast I went upon deck, and saw a Deal boat making for the
+ship. She came along in slashing style, under her broad lug--what
+splendid boats those Deal luggers are, and how superbly the fellows
+handle them!--and in a short time was near enough to enable me to see
+that she towed our quarter-boat astern, and that Coxon and Duckling
+were among her occupants. I went to the gangway to receive her: she
+fell off, then luffed, running a fine semicircle; down dropped her
+lug, her mizzen brought her right to, and she came alongside with
+beautiful precision, stopping under the gangway like a carriage at your
+door.
+
+I caught the line that was flung from her, took a turn with it, and
+then Coxon and the chief mate stepped on board. The moment he touched
+the deck, Coxon called to the men who were hanging about the forecastle.
+
+"Get your traps together, and out with you! If ever a man among you
+stops in my ship five minutes, I'll fling him overboard."
+
+With which terrible threat he walked into the cuddy. Duckling remained
+at the gangway to see the crew leave the ship. The poor fellows were
+all ready. They had made up their minds to go ashore, but hardly knew
+under what circumstances. I had noticed them pressing forward to look
+into the boat when she came alongside, no doubt expecting to see the
+uniform of a police-superintendent there. The presence of such an
+official would, of course, have meant imprisonment to them; they would
+have been locked up until brought before the magistrates. They were
+clearly disappointed by the skipper's procedure, for as they came to
+the gangway, carrying their bags and chests, all kinds of remarks,
+expressive of their opinion on the matter, were uttered by them.
+
+"The old blackguard," said one, flinging his bag into the boat,
+and lingering before Duckling and myself in order to deliver his
+observations, "he hasn't the pluck to have us tried. Pitch us
+overboard! let him try his (etc.) hand upon the littlest of us! I'd
+take six months, and thank 'em, just to warm my fist on his (etc.)
+face!" and so forth.
+
+Duckling was wise to hold his peace. The men were furious enough to
+have massacred him had he opened his lips.
+
+The older hands got into the boat in silence; but none of the rest left
+the ship without some candid expression of his feelings. One said he'd
+gladly pay a pound for leave to set fire to the ship. Another called
+her a floating workhouse. A third hoped that the vessel would be sunk,
+and the brutes commanding her drowned before this time to-morrow.
+Every evil wish that malice and rage could invent was hurled at the
+vessel and at those who remained in her. In after days I recalled that
+beautiful morning, the picture of the lugger alongside the ship, the
+hungry, ill-used men with their poor packs going over the vessel's
+side, and the curses they pronounced as they left us.
+
+An incident followed the entry of the last of the men in the boat.
+
+The sail was hoisted, the rope that held the boat let go, and her head
+was shoved off; when the "Portugee," in the excitement and fury of his
+feelings, drew in his breath and his cheeks, and spat with tremendous
+energy at Duckling, who was watching him: but the missile fell short;
+in a word, he spat full in the face of one of the old hands, who
+instantly knocked him down. He tumbled head over heels among the feet
+of the crowd of men, while Duckling roared out, "If the man who knocked
+that blackguard down will return to his duty, I'll be his friend." But
+all the answer he got was a roar which resembled in sound and character
+the mingled laughter and groans of a large mob; the fresh wind caught
+and filled the sail, the boat bounded away under the pressure, and in a
+few minutes was a long distance out of hail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+A fresh crew came down from London the following morning in charge of a
+crimp.
+
+Duckling went ashore to meet them at the railway station, and they came
+off in the same boat that had landed the others on the previous day.
+
+They appeared much the same sort of men as those who had left us; badly
+clothed for the most part, and but four of them had sea-chests, the
+rest bringing bags. There was one very big man among them, a fellow
+that dwarfed the others; he held himself erect, wore good boots, and
+might very well have passed for an escaped Lifeguardsman, were it not
+for the indescribable _something_ in his gait, and the way in which he
+hung his hands, that marked him for a Jack.
+
+Another fellow I noticed, as he scrambled over the ship's side,
+and sung out, in notes as hoarse as a raven's, to pitch him up his
+"blooming portmantey," had a very extraordinary face, altogether out
+of proportion with his head, being, I dare say, a full third too
+small. The back of the skull was immense, and was covered with hair
+coarser than Duckling's--as coarse as hemp-yarns. This hair grew down
+beside his ears, and got mixed up with streaky whiskers, which bound
+up the lower part of his face like a tar poultice. Out of this circle
+of hair looked a face as small as a young boy's; little half-closed
+Chinese eyes, a bit of a pug nose, and a square mouth, kept open
+so as to show that he wanted four front teeth. The frame belonging
+to this remarkable head and face was singularly vigorous though
+grievously misshapen. His long arms went far down his legs; his back,
+without having a hump, was as round as a shell, and he looked as if he
+measured a yard and a half from shoulder to shoulder. I watched this
+strange-looking creature with great curiosity until I lost sight of him
+in the forecastle.
+
+The men bustled over the side with great alacrity, bawling for their
+bags and property to be handed up in a great variety of accents. There
+were two Dutchmen and a copper-coloured man, with African features,
+among them; the rest were English.
+
+The crimp remained in the boat, watching the men go on board. He was
+from the other side of Jordan. His woolly hair was soaked with oil, and
+shone resplendent in the sun; the oil seemed to have got into his hat,
+too, for that had a most fearful polish. He wore a greatcoat that came
+down to his shins, and beneath this he exhibited a pair of blue serge
+breeches, terminating in boots as greasy as his hat. He was genteel
+enough to wear kid gloves; but the imagination was not to be seduced by
+such an artifice from picturing the dirt under the gloves.
+
+I knew something of crimps, and amused myself with an idle speculation
+or two whilst watching the man. This was a fellow who would probably
+keep a lodging-house for sailors in some dirty little street leading
+out of the West India Dock Road. His terms would be very easy: seven
+shillings a week for board and lodging, and every gentleman to pay
+for extras. He would probably have two or three amiable and obliging
+sisters, daughters, or nieces living with him, knowing the generous and
+blind confidence Jack reposes in the endearments of the soft sex, and
+how very prodigally he will pay for them. So this greasy miscreant's
+dirty West India Dock Road lodging-house for sailors would always be
+pretty full, and he would never have much difficulty in mustering a
+crew when he got an order to raise one. Of course it would pay him as
+it pays other crimps to let lodgings to sailors, so as to have them
+always about him when a crew is wanted; for will he not obligingly cash
+their advance-notes for them, handing them say, thirty shillings for
+three pounds ten? "What do I do with this dirty risk?" he will exclaim,
+when Jack expostulates. "Supposing you cut stick? I lose my money! I
+only do this to obleege you. Go into the street," he cries, pretending
+to get into a passion, "and see what you'll get for your dirty piece
+of paper. You'll be comin' back to me on your bended knees, with the
+tears a tricklin' and runnin' over your cheeks, axing my parding for
+wronging me and willin' to say a prayer of thankfulness for me bein'
+put in your vay. You'll want a bag for your clothes, and here's one,
+dirt cheap, five and a 'arf. And you can't go to sea vith one pair o'
+brigs, and you shall have these beauties a bargain--come, fourteen and
+six, for _you_, and I'll ask you not to say what you gave for 'em, or
+I shall have four hundred and fifty-vun customers comin' in a rage
+to tell me I'm a villin for charging of 'em a guinea for the shame
+article. And here's a first-class knife and belt--something fit for the
+heye to rest upon--honestly vorth 'arf a sovrin, which I'll make you a
+present of for a bob, and if you say a vord I'll take everything back,
+for I _can't_ stand ingratitood."
+
+Our friend watched the crew over the vessel's side with jealous
+eyes, for had they refused at the last moment to remain in the ship,
+he would have been a loser to the amount he had given them for their
+advance-notes. He looked really happy when the last man was out of the
+lugger and her head turned for the shore. He raised his greasy hat to
+Duckling, and his hair shone like polished mahogany in the sun.
+
+"Aft here, some of you, and ship this gangway. Boatswain, pipe all
+hands to get the ship under weigh," cried Duckling; and turning to me
+with a wink, he added, "If the grub is going to bring more rows, we
+must fight 'em on the high seas."
+
+There was a little breeze from the south-east; quite enough to keep
+the lighter sails full and give us headway against the tide that was
+running up Channel. The men, zealous as all new-comers are, hastened
+briskly out of the forecastle on hearing Duckling's voice and the
+boatswain's whistle, and manned the windlass. The pilot was now on the
+poop with the skipper, the latter looking lively enough as he heard
+the quick clanking of the palls. The men broke into a song and chorus
+presently, and the rude strains chimed in well with the hoarse echo of
+the cable coming link by link in-board.
+
+Presently I reported the cable up and down. Then from Duckling, the
+pilot's mouthpiece, came the familiar orders--
+
+"Loose the outer jib."
+
+"Lay aloft, some of you, and loose the topsails."
+
+"Up with that jib smartly, my lads."
+
+"A hand aft here to the wheel."
+
+The ship lay with her head pointing to the direction in which she
+was going: there was nothing more to do than sheet home the topsails
+and trip the anchor. The men were tolerably nimble and smart. The
+three topsails were soon set, the windlass again manned, and within a
+quarter of an hour from the time when the order was given, the ship was
+under way, and pushing quietly through a tide that raced in a hundred
+wrinkles around her bows.
+
+We set the fore and main top-gallant sails and spanker presently: the
+yards were braced sharp up, for we were heading well south, so as to
+give the Foreland a wide berth. This extra canvas sent us swirling
+past the red-hulled lightship off this point, and soon the Dover pier
+opened, and the great white cliffs with their green heights. Anon, our
+course bringing the wind more aft, we set the mainsail and main-royal
+and mizzen top-gallant sail, with the staysails and jibs.
+
+The breeze freshened as we stretched seawards; the ship was now
+carrying a deal of canvas, and the men seemed pleased with her pace.
+
+The day was gloriously fine. The sea was of an emerald green, alive
+with little leaping waves each with its narrow thread of froth: the
+breeze was strong enough to lay the vessel over, just so far as to
+enable one looking over the weather side to see her copper, shining red
+below the green line of water. The brilliant sunshine illuminated the
+brass-work with innumerable glories, and shone with fluctuating flashes
+in the glass of the skylights, and made the decks glisten like a
+yacht's. The canvas, broad and white, towered nobly to the sky, and the
+main-royal against the deep blue of the sky seemed like a cloud among
+the whiter clouds which swept in quick succession high above. It was
+a sight to look over the ship's bows, to see her keen stem shredding
+the water, and the permanent pillar of foam leaning away from her
+weather-bow.
+
+This part of the Channel was full of shipping, and I know, by the
+vividness with which my memory reproduces the scene, how beautiful
+was the picture impressed upon it. All on our right were the English
+shores, made delicate and even fanciful by distance; here and there
+fairy-like groups of houses, standing on the heights among trees or
+embosomed in valleys, with silver sands sloping to the sea: deep
+shadows staining the purity of the brilliant chalk, and a foreground
+of pleasure-boats with sails glistening like pearl and bright flags
+streaming. And to our right and left vessels of different rigs and
+sizes standing up or down Channel, some running like ourselves, free,
+with streaming wakes, others coming up close-hauled, some in ballast
+high out of water, stretching their black sides along the sea and
+exposing to windward shining surfaces of copper.
+
+At half-past two o'clock in the afternoon, all sail that was required
+having been made, and the decks cleared, the hands were divided into
+watches, and I, having charge of the port watch, came on deck. The
+starboard watch went below; but as the men had not dined, a portion of
+my own watch joined the others in the forecastle to get their dinner.
+
+I now discovered that the copper-faced man, to whom I have drawn
+attention, was the new cook. I heard the men bandying jokes with him as
+they went in and out of the galley, carrying the steaming lumps of pork
+and reeking dishes of pea-soup into the forecastle, whence I concluded
+that they had either not yet discovered the quality of the provisions,
+or that they were more easily satisfied than their predecessors had
+been.
+
+Among the men in my own watch was the great strapping fellow whom I
+had likened to a Lifeguardsman. I had thought the man too big to be
+handy up aloft, but was very much deceived; for in all my life I never
+witnessed such feats of activity as he performed. His long legs had
+enabled him to take two ratlines at a time, and he saved himself the
+trouble of getting over the futtock shrouds by very easily making two
+steps from the mainshrouds to the mainyard, and from the mainyard to
+the maintop. I watched him leave the galley, carrying his smoking
+mess; but I also noticed, before I lost sight of him, that he took a
+suspiciously long sniff at the steam under his nose, and then violently
+expectorated.
+
+The breeze was now very lively; the canvas was stretching nobly to it,
+and the shore all along our starboard beam was a gliding panorama,
+brilliant with colour and sunshine. They were having dinner in the
+cuddy, and as often as I passed the skylight I could see the captain
+glancing upwards at the sails with a well-pleased expression.
+
+I presently noticed the cook's copper face, crowned with an odd kind
+of knitted cap, protruding from the galley, and his small eyes gazed
+intently at me. I paced the length of the poop, and when I returned,
+the cook's head was still at its post, and then his body came out and
+he stood staring in my direction.
+
+I had to turn abruptly to hide my mirth, for his face was ornamented
+with an expression of disgust exquisitely comical with the wrinkled
+nose, the arched thick mouth, and the screwed-up eyebrows.
+
+When I again looked he was coming along the deck, swinging a piece
+of very fat pork at the end of a string. He advanced close to the
+poop-ladder at the top of which I was standing, and holding up the
+pork, said--
+
+"You see dis, sar?"
+
+"Yes," I answered.
+
+"Me belong to a country where we no eat pork," he exclaimed, with great
+gravity, still preserving his wrinkled nose and immensely disgusted
+expression.
+
+"What country is that?" I asked.
+
+"Hot country, sar," he answered. "But me will eat pork on board ship."
+
+"Very proper."
+
+"But me will _not_ eat stinking pork on board ship or anywhere else,"
+he cried excitedly.
+
+"Is that piece of pork tainted?" I inquired.
+
+"Don't know nuffen 'bout tainted, sar," he replied; "but it smells
+kinder strong. But not so strong as the liquor where t'other porks was
+biled in. Nebber smelled de like, sar. Most disgusting. Come and try
+it, sar. Make you feel queer."
+
+"Pitch the water overboard, then."
+
+"No good, sar. Fork'sle full of stinks, and men grumblin' like hell. Me
+fust-rate cook, too--but no make a stink sweet. Dat beats me."
+
+He held up the pork, with an expression on his face as if he were about
+to sneeze, shook his finger at it as though it were something that
+could be affected by the gesture, and flung it overboard.
+
+"Dat's my rations," said he. "Shouldn't like to eat de fish dat
+swallers it."
+
+And turning jauntily in his frocked canvas breeches he walked off.
+
+A few moments afterwards the extraordinary-looking man with the small
+face and large head, and shell-shaped back, came out of the forecastle,
+walking from side to side with a springing jerky action of the legs,
+they being evidently moved by a force having no reference to his will.
+
+"Ax your pardon, sir," he said, twirling up his thumb in the direction
+of his forehead; "but the meat's infernal bad aboard this here wessel."
+
+"I can't help it," I answered, annoyed to be the recipient of these
+complaints, which seemed really to justify Coxon's charge of my being
+the crew's confidant. "You must talk to the captain about it."
+
+"Ne'er a man among us can eat of the pork; and the cook, as is better
+acquainted than us with these here matters, says he'd rather be biled
+alive than swaller a ounce of it."
+
+"The captain is the proper person to complain to."
+
+"That may be, sir," said the man, dropping his chin, so that by
+projecting his beard his face appeared to withdraw, and grow smaller
+still. "But the boatswain says there'll not be much got by complaining
+to the skipper."
+
+"I can't make the ship's stores better than they are," I replied,
+moving a step, for I now perceived that some of the crew were watching
+us, and I did not want the captain to come on deck and find me talking
+to this man about the provisions. But it so happened that at this
+particular moment the captain emerged from the companion hatchway. The
+man did not stir, and the captain said--
+
+"What does that fellow want?"
+
+"He is complaining of the pork, sir. I have referred him to you."
+
+He gave me a sharp look, and leaning forwards, said in a quiet, mild
+voice--
+
+"What's the matter, my man?"
+
+"Why, sir, I've been asked to come and say that the pork that's been
+served to the men is in a werry bad state, to be sure. It's more smell
+than meat, and what ain't smell is brine."
+
+"I am sorry to hear that," said the captain in a most benignant manner.
+"Look into the cuddy and tell the steward I want him."
+
+The steward stepped on to the quarter-deck and looked up at his master
+in a way that made me suspect he had got his cue.
+
+"What's the matter with the pork, steward?"
+
+"Nothing, sir, that I know of."
+
+"The men say it smells strong--that's what you say, I think?" remarked
+the captain, addressing the man.
+
+"Werry strong, sir--strong enough to sit upon, sir."
+
+"I don't know how that can be," exclaimed the steward, looking very
+puzzled indeed. "It's sweet enough in the cask. Perhaps it's the fault
+of the biling."
+
+"Nothing to do with the biling, mate," said the man, shaking his
+extraordinary head, at the same time surveying the steward indignantly.
+"Biling clears away smells as a rule."
+
+"Perhaps you've opened a bad cask. If so," said the captain, "fling it
+overboard, for I'll not have the men poisoned. Let the cook boil me a
+sample from the next cask you open, and put it upon my table--do you
+hear?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"That will do," continued the captain, addressing the man. "You may go
+forward and tell your mates what I have said."
+
+And away straggled the man to inform the crew, no doubt, that the
+skipper was a brick, and that he'd like to punch the steward's head.
+
+At seven o'clock next morning we were abreast the Isle of Wight, having
+carried a strong south-easterly breeze with us as far as Eastbourne,
+when the wind lulled and remained light all through the middle watch;
+but after four it freshened again from the same quarter, and came on to
+blow strong; but we kept the fore and main royals on her all through,
+and only furled them to heave the ship to off Ventnor, where we landed
+the pilot.
+
+There was a nasty lump of a sea on just here, and some smacks making
+for Portsmouth carried half sails soaking and their decks running with
+water. The _Grosvenor_, owing to her weight, lay steady enough; a
+little too steady, I thought, for she shipped water over her starboard
+bow without rising, reminding me of a deep-laden barge, along which
+you will see the swell running and washing, whilst she herself goes
+squashing through with scarcely a roll.
+
+A dandy-rigged boat put off, in response to our signal, and I enjoyed
+the pretty picture she made as she came foaming, close hauled, towards
+the ship, burying herself in spray as she shoved her keen nose into
+the sea, and hopping nimbly out of one trough into another, so that
+sometimes you could see her forefoot right out of water.
+
+I was glad when the pilot got over the side. He was a mean toady, and
+had done me no good with the captain. The gangway ladder had been
+thrown over to enable him to descend, and the boat washed high and low,
+up and down, alongside, sometimes level with the deck, sometimes twelve
+or fourteen feet in a hollow.
+
+"Now's your time," said I, mischievously, as he hung on to the man-rope
+with one leg out to catch the boat as she rose. He took me at my word
+and let go; but the boat was sinking, and down he went with her, and I
+had the satisfaction of seeing him roll right into the boat's bottom,
+and there get so hopelessly entangled with the pump and some trawling
+gear, that it took two boatmen to pull him out and set him on his feet.
+
+Then away they went, the pilot waving his hat to the skipper, who
+cries--
+
+"Man the lee main braces."
+
+The great yards were swung around, and the ship lay over to the immense
+weight of canvas.
+
+"Ease off those jib-sheets there, and set the mainsail."
+
+The ship, feeling the full breeze, surged slowly forwards, parting the
+toppling seas with thundering blows of her bows. She had as much sail
+on her as she could well carry, and a trifle to spare, for the breeze
+had freshened whilst we had been lying to, a couple of vessels to
+windward were taking in their fore and mizzen top-gallant sails, and
+ahead was a smart brig with a single reef in her fore-topsail. The wind
+was well abeam, perhaps half a point abaft, and every sail was swollen
+like the cheeks of rude Boreas in the picture of that bleak worthy.
+
+This cracking on delighted Duckling, whose head turned so violently
+about as he stared first at these sails, then at those, then forward,
+then aft, that I thought he would end in putting a kink into his neck.
+
+"This is proper!" he exclaimed, in his hoarse voice, after ordering
+some hands "to clap the watch-tackle on to the main-tack and rouse it
+down." "We'll teach 'em how to froth this blessed Channel! I guess
+we've had enough of calms, and if the Scilly ain't some miles astern by
+the second dog-watch to-morrow I'll turn a monk, you see!"
+
+We were heading well west-south-west, and the water was flying in
+sheets of foam from the ship's bows. By this time it was dark, and the
+sky thick with the volume of wind that swept over it; the stars shone
+hazily, but it was as much as I could do to trace the outlines of the
+main-royal and top-gallant sail.
+
+The vessel was rushing through the water at a great pace. I felt as
+exhilarated as one new to the life when I looked astern and saw the
+broad path of foam churned by the ship rising and falling and fading
+upon the desolate gloom of the hilly horizon. Blue fires burnt in
+the water; but, by-and-by, when by stretching out we had got into
+the broader sea, and the vessel plunged to the heavier waves which
+were running, big flakes of phosphorescent light were hurled up with
+the water every time the ship pitched, and for twenty fathoms astern
+the water was as luminous as the Milky Way. The roaring of the wind
+on high, the creaking of the spars, the clanking and grinding of the
+chain-sheets, the squeal of sheaves working on rusty pins, the hissing
+and spitting of the seething foam, and ever and anon the sullen thunder
+of a sea striking the ship, filled the ear with a wonderful volume of
+sound. The captain was cracking on to make up for lost time, and he
+was on deck when I went below at ten o'clock to get some rest before
+relieving Duckling at midnight. There were then two hands at the wheel,
+and a couple on the look-out; our lamps were burning bravely, but we
+had long ago outrun all sight of shore and of lights ashore.
+
+I slept soundly, and at eight bells Duckling roused me up. The
+unpleasantest part of a sailor's life is this periodical turning out
+of warm blankets to walk the deck for four hours. The rawness of
+the night air is anything but stimulating to a man just awake and
+very sleepy. Let the wind be never so steady, the decks are full of
+powerful draughts rushing out of the sails and blowing into your eyes
+and ears and up the legs of your trousers, and down the collar of your
+shirt, turn where you will: and you think, as your hair is blown over
+your eyes and a shower of spray comes pattering upon your oilskins
+and annoying your face, of your sheltered cabin and warm cot, and
+wonder what, in the name of common sense, caused you to take to this
+uncomfortable profession. The crew in this respect are better off than
+their officers; for the watch on deck at night can always manage to
+sneak into the forecastle and dose upon their chests, or on the deck
+and keep under shelter; whereas the mate in charge must be always wide
+awake and on his legs throughout his watch, and shirk nothing that the
+heavens may choose to pour upon his defenceless person.
+
+I had four hours before me when I went on deck, and I may perhaps have
+wished myself ashore in a quiet bed. The captain stood near the wheel.
+It was blowing very fresh indeed, the wind about east-southeast, with
+a strong following sea. The yards had been braced further aft, but no
+other alteration had been made since I had gone below. If I had thought
+that the vessel was carrying too much sail then, I certainly thought
+that she was carrying a great deal too much sail now. She could have
+very well dispensed with the main-royal and two top-gallant sails, and
+in my opinion would have made the same way with a single reef in the
+topsails. The press of canvas was burying her. Well aft as the wind
+was, the vessel lay over to starboard under it, and she was dragging
+her heavy channels sluicing and foaming through the water. The moon
+was weak, with a big ring round her, and the sky was obscured by the
+scud which fled swiftly away to the north-west. The horizon was thick,
+and the troubled sheen of the moon upon the jumping seas made the dark
+waters, with their ghastly lines of phosphorescent foam, a most wild
+and weird panorama.
+
+I mustered the watch, and a couple of them went to relieve their mates
+on the forecastle. A night-glass lay on one of the skylights, and I
+swept the horizon with it, but nothing was to be seen. I walked aft to
+see how she was steering, for these heavy following seas lumping up
+against a ship's quarter play the deuce with some vessels, making the
+compass-card swing wildly and setting the square sails lifting; but
+found her steering very steadily, though the rush of some of the seas
+under her counter might have bewildered a two-thousand-ton ship. She
+rose, too, better than I thought she would, though she was sluggish
+enough, for some of the seas ran past her with their crests curling
+above her lee bulwarks, and she had received one souser near the
+galley; but her decks to windward were dry.
+
+Coxon was smoking a big Dutch pipe, holding it with one hand and the
+rail with the other. He had a hair cap on with flaps over his ears,
+and sea-boots, and all that he was doing was first to blow a cloud and
+then look up at the sails, and then blow another cloud and then look up
+again. This would appear to have been going on since nine o'clock. I
+thought he must be pretty tired of his diversion by this time.
+
+"She bears her canvas well, sir," said I.
+
+"Yes," he answered gruffly, "I have lost twenty-four hours. I ought to
+have been clear of the Channel by this."
+
+"She is a fast vessel, sir. We are doing good twelve, I should say."
+
+He cast his eyes over the stern, then looked up aloft, but made no
+answer. I was moving away when he exclaimed--
+
+"Go forward and tell the men to keep a bright look-out. And keep your
+weather-eye lifting yourself, sir."
+
+I did as he bade me, and got upon the forecastle. I found the two men
+who were indistinguishable from the poop, wrapped in oilskins leaning
+against the forecastle rail. It blew harder here than it did aft, for
+a power of wind rushed slanting from the fore-topmast stay-sail and
+whirled up from under the foot of the foresail. The crashing sound of
+the vessel's bows, urged through the heavy water by the great power
+that was bellowing overhead, was wonderful to hear: an uproar of
+thunder was all around, mingled with wild shrieking cries and the
+strange groaning of straining timbers. The moon stood away to windward
+of the mizzen royal-mast head, and it was a sight to look up and see
+the grey canvas, full like balloons, soaring into the sky, and to hear
+the mighty rush of the wind among the rigging as the vessel rolled
+against it, making the moon whirl across her spars to and fro, to and
+fro.
+
+I had been on deck three quarters of an hour when, feeling the wind
+very cold, I dived into my cabin for a shawl to wrap round my neck.
+
+I had hardly left the cuddy door to return, when I heard a loud cry
+from the forecastle, and both hands roared out simultaneously, "A sail
+right ahead!"
+
+Coxon walked quickly forward to the poop-rail to try to see the vessel
+to windward. Then he went over to the other side and peered under the
+mainsail; after which he said, "I see nothing. Where is she?"
+
+I shouted through my hands, "On which bow is she?"
+
+"Right ahead!" came the reply.
+
+"There was a short pause, and then one of the men roared out, "Hard
+over! we're upon her! She's cutter rigged! she's a smack!"
+
+"Hard a-port! hard a-port!" bawled Coxon.
+
+I saw the spokes of the wheel fly round, but almost at the same moment,
+I felt a sudden shock--an odd kind of _thud_, the effect of which upon
+my senses was to produce the impression of a sudden lull in the wind.
+
+"God Almighty!" bellowed a voice, "we've run her down!"
+
+In a second I had bounded to the weather-side of the poop and
+looked over, and what I saw sliding rapidly past, was a mast and a
+dark-coloured sail, which in the daylight would probably be red,
+stretched flat upon the wilderness of foam which our ship was sweeping
+off her sides. Upon this ghastly white ground the sail and mast were
+distinctly outlined--for a brief moment only--they vanished even as I
+watched, swallowed up in the seething water. And then all overhead the
+sails of the ship began to thunder, and the rigging quivered and jerked
+as though it must snap.
+
+"Hard over! hard over!" bellowed Coxon.
+
+I saw him rush to the wheel, thrust away one of the men, and pull the
+spokes over with all his force. The vessel answered splendidly, swerved
+nobly round like a creature of instinct, and was again rushing headlong
+with full sail over the sea.
+
+This was a close shave. At the speed at which she was travelling she
+had obeyed the rudder in the first instance so promptly as to come
+round close to the wind. A few moments more and she would have been
+taken aback; and this, taking into consideration the amount of canvas
+she was carrying, must infallibly have meant the loss of most, if not
+of all, her spars.
+
+Horrified by the thoughts of living creatures drowning in our wake, I
+cried out to the skipper--
+
+"Won't you make an effort to save them, sir?"
+
+"Save them be hanged!" he answered fiercely. "Why the devil didn't they
+get out of our road?"
+
+I was so much shocked by the coarse inhumanity of this reply, that I
+turned on my heel; but yet was constrained by an ugly fascination to
+turn again and cast shuddering glances at the spot where I pictured
+the drowning wretches battling with the waves.
+
+Captain Coxon was too intent upon the compass to notice my manner; he
+was giving directions to the men in a low voice, with his eyes fixed on
+the card.
+
+Presently he exclaimed, in his gruffest voice, "Call the carpenter to
+sound the well."
+
+This was soon despatched, and I returned and reported a dry bottom.
+
+"Heave the log, sir."
+
+I called a couple of hands aft and went through the tiresome and
+tedious job of ascertaining the speed by the measured line and
+sand-glass. The reel rattled furiously in the hands of the man who held
+it: I thought the whole of the line would go away overboard before the
+fellow who was holding the glass cried, "Stop!"
+
+"What do you make it?" demanded Coxon.
+
+"Thirteen knots, sir."
+
+He looked over the side as though to assure himself that the
+computation was correct, then called out--
+
+"Clew up the main-royal, and furl it!"
+
+This was a beginning, and it was about time that a beginning was made.
+The breeze had freshened into a strong wind, this had grown into half a
+gale, and the look of the sky promised a whole gale before morning. The
+main-royal halliards were let go, and a couple of hands went up to stow
+the bit of canvas that was thumping among the clouds.
+
+Presently, "Furl the fore and mizzen top-gallant sails."
+
+This gave occupation to the watch; and now the decks began to grow
+lively with the figures of men running about, with songs and choruses,
+with cries of "Belay, there!"--"Up with it smartly, my lads!" and with
+the heavy flapping of canvas.
+
+All this, however, was no very great reduction of sail. The _Grosvenor_
+carried the old-fashioned single topsails, and these immense spaces
+of canvas were holding a power of wind. Overhead the scud flew fast
+and furious, and all to windward the horizon was very thick. We took
+in the main-top-gallant sail; and while the hands were aloft we
+came up hand over fist with a big ship, painted white. She was to
+leeward, stretching away under double-reefed topsails, and showed out
+quite distinctly upon the dark sea beyond, and under the struggling
+moonshine. We ran close enough to take the wind out of her sails, and
+could easily have hailed her had there been any necessity to do so; but
+we could discern no one on deck but a single hand at the wheel. She
+showed no lights, and with her white hull and glimmering sails, and
+fragile naked yards and masts, she looked as ghostly as anything I ever
+saw on the water. She rolled and plunged solemnly among the seas, and
+threw up her own swirling outline in startling relief upon the foam she
+flung from her side, and which streamed away in pyramid-shape. She went
+astern like a buoy, and in a few minutes had vanished as utterly from
+our sight as if she had foundered.
+
+I now stood waiting for an order which I knew must soon come. It is one
+thing to "carry on," but it is another thing to rip the masts out of a
+ship. I don't think we had lost half a knot in speed through the canvas
+that had been taken in: the vessel seemed to be running very nearly as
+fast as the seas. But the wind was not only increasing, but increasing
+with squalls, so that there were times when you would have thought
+that the inmates of forty mad-houses had got among the rigging and out
+upon the yards, and were screeching, yelling, and groaning with all the
+force they were master of.
+
+At last the captain gave the order I awaited.
+
+"All hands reef topsails."
+
+In a few minutes the boatswain's pipe sounded, and the watch below came
+tumbling out of the forecastle. Now came a scene familiar to every man
+who has been to sea, whether as a sailor or a passenger. In a ship of
+war the crew go to work to the sound of fiddles or silver whistles;
+every man knows his station; everything is done quickly, quietly, and
+completely. But in a merchantman the men go to work to the sound of
+their own voices: these voices are, as a rule, uncommonly harsh and
+hoarse; and as every working party has its own solo and chorus, and
+as all working parties sing together, the effect upon the ear, to say
+the very least, is hideous. But also in a merchantman the crew is
+always less in number than they ought to be. Hence, when the halliards
+are let go, the confusion below and aloft becomes overwhelming; for
+not more, perhaps, than a couple of sails can be handled at a time,
+and, meanwhile, the others waiting to be furled are banged about by
+the wind, and fling such a thunder upon the ear that orders are scarce
+audible for the noise.
+
+All this to a certain degree happened in the present instance. The
+captain having carried canvas with fool-hardy boldness, now ran into
+the other extreme. The quick fierce gusts which ran down upon the
+ship frightened him, and his order was to let go all three topsail
+halliards, and double-reef the sails. The halliards were easily let
+go; but then, the working hands being few, confusion must follow. The
+yards coming down upon the caps, the sails stood out in bellies hard
+as iron. A whole watch upon each reef-tackle could hardly bring the
+blocks together. When the mizzen-topsail was reefed, it was found that
+the fore-topsail would require all hands; the helm had to be put down
+to shake the sail, so as to enable the men to make the reef-points
+meet. The main-topsail lifted as well as the fore-topsail, and both
+sails rattled in unison; and the din of the pealing canvas, furiously
+shaken by the howling wind, the cries of the men getting the sail over
+to windward, the booming of the seas against the ship's bows, the
+groaning of her timbers, the excited grunting of terrified pigs, and
+the rumbling of an empty water-cask, which had broken from its lashings
+and was rolling to and fro the main-deck, constituted an uproar of
+which no description, however elaborate, could even faintly express
+the overwhelming character.
+
+When the dawn broke it found the _Grosvenor_ under reefed topsails,
+fore-topmast, staysail, foresail, main-trysail, and spanker, snug
+enough, but with streaming decks, for the gale had raised a heavy
+beam sea, and the deep-laden ship was sluggish, and took the water
+repeatedly over her weather-bulwarks.
+
+The watch below had turned in again, but it was already seven bells,
+and at four o'clock my turn would come to go to bed. I had charge of
+the ship, for the captain having passed the night in observing his
+vessel's sailing powers under all canvas, had gone below, and I was not
+sorry to get rid of him, for his continued presence aft had become a
+nuisance to my eyes.
+
+The sea under the gathering light in the east was a remarkable sight.
+The creaming arching surfaces of the waves took the pale illumination,
+but the troughs or hollows were livid, and looking along the rugged
+surface as the ship rose, one seemed to behold countless lines of
+yawning caverns opening in an illimitable waste of snow. Nothing could
+surpass the profound desolation of the scene surveyed in the faint
+struggling dawn, the pallid heaven, bearing its dim and languishing
+stars, over which were swept long lines of smoke-coloured clouds torn
+and mangled by the wind; the broken ocean pouring and boiling away to
+a melancholy horizon, still dark, save where the dawn was creeping
+upwards with its chilly light, and making the eastern sea and sky
+leaden-hued.
+
+I had now leisure to recall the fatal accident I have related, and
+the inhumanity of Captain Coxon's comment upon it. I hugged myself in
+my thick coat as I looked astern at the cold and rushing waters, and
+thought of the bitter sudden deaths of the unfortunates we had run
+down. With what appalling rapidity had the whole thing happened! not
+even a dying shriek had been heard amid the roar of the wind among the
+masts. For many a day the memory of that dark-coloured sail, prone
+upon the foaming water, haunted me. The significance of it was awful
+to think upon. But for the men on the look-out, never a soul among us
+would have known that living beings had been hurled into sudden and
+dreadful death, that the ship in which we sailed had perchance made
+widows of sleeping wives, had made children fatherless, and that ruin
+and beggary and sorrow had been churned up out of the deep by our
+unsparing bows.
+
+Our voyage had begun inauspiciously enough, God knows: and as I looked
+towards the east where the morning light was kindling over the livid,
+rugged horizon, a strange depression fell upon my spirits, and the
+presentiment then entered my mind and never afterwards quitted it, that
+perils and suffering and death were in store for us, and that when I
+had looked on the English coast last night I was unconsciously bidding
+farewell to scenes I should never behold again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+I was on deck again at eight o'clock. It was still blowing a gale, but
+the wind had drawn right aft, and though the topsails were kept reefed,
+Duckling had thought fit to set the main top-gallant sail, and the ship
+was running bravely.
+
+Yet, though her speed was good, she was rolling abominably; for the
+wind had not had time to change the course of the waves, and we had now
+all the disadvantage of a beam sea without the modifying influence over
+the ship's rolling of a beam wind.
+
+I reckoned that we had made over one hundred and thirty knots during
+the twelve hours, so that if the gale lasted, we might hope to be clear
+of the Scilly Isles by next morning. There was a small screw steamer
+crossing our bows right ahead, possibly hailing from France and bound
+to the Bristol Channel. I watched her through a glass, sometimes
+breathlessly, for in all my life I never saw any vessel pitch as she
+did, and live. Sometimes she seemed to stand clear out of water so as
+to look all hull: then down she would go and leave nothing showing
+but a bit of her funnel sticking up with black smoke pouring away
+from it. Several times when she pitched I said to myself, "Now she is
+gone!" Her bows went clean under, heaving aloft a prodigious space of
+foam: up cocked her stern, and, with the help of the glass, I could
+see her screw skurrying round in the air. Her decks were lumbered
+with cattle-pens, but the only living thing I could see on board was
+a man steering her on the bridge. She vanished all on a sudden, amid
+a Niagara of spray; but some minutes after I saw her smoke on the
+horizon. Had I not seen her smoke I should have been willing to wager
+that she had foundered. These mysterious disappearances at sea are by
+no means rare; but are difficult to account for, since they sometimes
+happen when the horizon is clear. I have sighted a ship and watched
+her for some time: withdrawn my eyes for a minute, looked again, and
+perceived no signs of her. It is possible that mists of small extent
+may hang upon the sea, not noticeable at a distance, and that they
+will shut out a vessel suddenly and puzzle you as a miracle would.
+The fascinating legend of the "Phantom Ship" may have originated in
+disappearances of this kind, for they are quite complete and surprising
+enough to inspire superstitious thoughts in such plain, unlettered
+minds as sailors'.
+
+They were breakfasting in the cuddy and in the forecastle, and I was
+waiting for the skipper to come on deck that I might go below and get
+something to eat. But before he made his appearance, the confounded
+copper-coloured cook, accompanied by a couple of men, came aft.
+
+"Sar," said this worthy, who looked lovely in a pink-striped skirt and
+yellow overalls, "me ask you respeckfly to speak to de skipper and tell
+him him biscuit am dam bad, sar."
+
+"I'm messman for the starboard watch, sir," exclaimed one of the men,
+"and the ship's company says they can't get the bread down 'em nohow."
+
+"Why do you come to me?" I demanded of them angrily. "I have already
+told you, cook, that I have nothing to do with the ship's stores. You
+heard what Captain Coxon said yesterday?"
+
+"Can't the steward get us up a fresh bag of bread for breakfast?"
+exclaimed the third man.
+
+"He's in the cuddy," I replied; "ask him."
+
+They bobbed their heads forward to see through the cuddy windows, and
+at that moment Duckling came on deck up through the companion.
+
+"You can get your breakfast," said he to me. "I'll keep watch until
+you've done."
+
+"Here are some men on the quarter-deck complaining of the bread," said
+I. "Will you speak to them?"
+
+He came forward at once, very briskly, and looked over.
+
+"What's the matter?" he called out.
+
+"We've come to complain of the ship's bread, sir," said one of the men,
+quite civilly.
+
+"Dam bad bread, sar. Me honest man and speak plain truff," exclaimed
+the cook, who possibly thought that his position privileged him to be
+both easy and candid on the subject of eating.
+
+"Get away forward!" cried Duckling, passionately. "The bread's good
+enough. You want to kick up a shindy."
+
+The men made a movement, the instinct of obedience responding
+mechanically to the command. But the cook held his ground, and said,
+shaking his head and convulsing his face--
+
+"De bread am poison, sar. All de flour's changed into worms. Nebber see
+such a ting. It get here"--touching his throat--"and make me--yaw!"
+
+"Go forward, I tell you, you yellow-faced villain!" shouted Duckling.
+"D'ye hear what I say?"
+
+"Dis chile is a cook," began the fellow; but Duckling sprang off the
+poop, and with his clenched fist struck him full under the jaw: the
+poor devil staggered and whirled round, and then up went Duckling's
+foot, and cook was propelled at a great pace along the main-deck
+towards the galley. He stopped, put his hand to his jaw, and looked
+at the palm of it; rubbed the part that had been kicked, turned and
+held up his clenched fist, and went into the galley. The two other men
+disappeared in the forecastle.
+
+"Curse their impudence!" exclaimed Duckling, remounting the poop-ladder
+and polishing his knuckles on the sleeve of his coat. "Now, Mr. Royle,
+get you down to your breakfast. I want to turn in when you've done."
+
+I entered the cuddy, not very greatly edified by Duckling's way of
+emphasizing his orders, and made a bow to the captain, who was still
+at table. He condescended to raise his eyes, but for some minutes
+afterwards took no notice of me whatever, occupying himself with
+glancing over a bundle of slips which looked like bill-heads in his
+hand.
+
+The vessel was rolling so heavily that the very plates slided to and
+fro the table, and it not only required dexterity, but was no mean
+labour to catch the coffee-pot off the swinging tray as it came like
+a pendulum over to my side, and to pour out a cup of coffee without
+capsizing it. The mahogany panelling and cabin doors all round creaked
+incessantly, and in the steward's pantry there was a frequent rattle of
+crockery.
+
+"What was going forward on the main-deck just now?" demanded Coxon,
+stowing away the papers in his pocket, and breaking fragments from a
+breakfast roll.
+
+I explained.
+
+"Ah!" said he; "they're still at that game, are they?"
+
+"Mr. Duckling punched the cook's head----"
+
+"I saw him, sir. Likewise he kicked him. Mr. Duckling knows his duty,
+and I hope he has taught the cook his. Steward!"
+
+"Yes, sir?" responded the steward, coming out of the pantry.
+
+"See that a piece of the pork you are serving out to the men is put
+upon my table to-day."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The captain fell into another fit of silence, during which I ate my
+breakfast as quickly as I could, in order to relieve Duckling.
+
+"Mr. Royle," said he presently, "when we ran that smack down this
+morning, what were you for doing?"
+
+"I should have hove the ship to," I replied, meeting his eyes.
+
+"Would you have hove her to had you been alone on deck, sir?"
+
+"Yes, and depended on your humanity to excuse me."
+
+"What do you mean by my humanity?" he cried, dissembling his temper
+badly. "What kind of cant is this you have brought on board my ship?
+Humanity! Damn it!" he exclaimed, his ungovernable temper blazing out:
+"had you hove my ship to on your own hook, I'd have had you in irons
+for the rest of the voyage."
+
+"I don't see the use of that threat, sir," said I, quietly. "You have
+to judge me by what I did do, not by what I might or would do."
+
+"Oh, confound your distinctions!" he went on, pushing his hair over his
+ears. "You told me that you would have hove the ship to had you been
+alone, and that means you would have whipped the masts out of her. Do
+you mean to tell me that you knew what sail we were carrying, to talk
+like this?"
+
+"Perfectly well."
+
+My composure irritated him more than my words, and I don't know what
+savage answer he was about to return; but his attention was on a sudden
+arrested and diverted from me. I turned my eyes in the direction in
+which he was staring, and beheld the whole ship's company advancing
+along the main-deck, led by the big seaman whose name was Johnson, and
+by the tortoise-backed, small-faced man who was called Fish--Ebenezer
+Fish.
+
+The moment the captain observed them, he rose precipitately, and ran up
+the companion-ladder; and as I had finished breakfast, I followed him.
+
+By the time I had reached the break of the poop the hands were all
+gathered about the mainmast. A few of them held tin dishes in their
+hands, in which were lumps of meat swimming in black vinegar. One
+carried some dozen biscuits supported against his breast. Another held
+a tin pannikin filled with treacle, and another grasped a salt-jar, or
+some such utensil, containing tea.
+
+The _coup d'oeil_ from the poop was at this moment striking. All around
+was a heavy sea with great waves boiling along it; overhead a pale blue
+sky, along which the wildest clouds were sweeping. The vessel running
+before the wind under double-reefed topsails, rolled deeply both to
+port and to starboard, ever and anon shipping a sheet of green water
+over her bulwarks, which went rushing to and fro the decks, seething
+and hissing among the feet of the men, and escaping, with loud
+bubbling noises, through the scupper-holes.
+
+I was almost as soon on deck as Coxon, and therefore heard the opening
+address of Johnson, who, folding his arms upon his breast, and "giving"
+on either leg, so as to maintain his equilibrium while the deck sloped
+to and fro under him, said in a loud, distinct voice--
+
+"The ship's company thinks it a dooty as they owe theirselves to come
+aft altogether to let you know that the provisions sarved out to 'em
+ain't eatable."
+
+"Out, all hands, with what you've got to say," replied Coxon, leaning
+against the rail, "and when you've done I'll talk to you."
+
+"Now then, mates, you hear what the skipper says," exclaimed Johnson,
+turning to the others.
+
+Just then I noticed the copper face of the cook, who was skulking
+behind the men, with his eyes fixed, flashing like a madman's, upon
+Duckling.
+
+The fellow with the biscuits came forward, but a heavy lurch at that
+moment made him stumble, and the biscuits rolled out of his arms. They
+were collected officiously by the others, and placed again in his
+hands, all sopping wet; but he said, in a collected voice--
+
+"These here are the starboard watch's bread. Ne'er a man has tasted of
+them. We've brought 'em for you to see, as so be it may happen that you
+aren't formiliar with the muck the steward sarves out."
+
+"Hand up a dry one," said the skipper.
+
+A man ran forward and returned with a biscuit, which the captain took,
+broke, smelt, and tasted. He then handed it to Duckling, who also smelt
+and tasted. After which he (the captain) said, "Fire away!"
+
+The fellow with the biscuits withdrew, and one of the men, bearing the
+pork swimming in vinegar, advanced. He was a Dutchman, and was heard
+and understood with difficulty.
+
+"My mates they shay tat tiss pork ish tam nashty, an' it isshn't pork
+ash I fanshy; but Gott knowsh what it iss; an' I shwear it gifs me ta
+shtomack-ache--by Gott, it doess, sir, ass I am a man."
+
+This speech was received with great gravity by the men as well as
+Coxon, who answered, "Hand it up."
+
+The mess was shoved through the rail and poked at by the skipper with a
+pen-knife; he even jobbed a piece of it out and put it into his mouth.
+I watched for a grimace, but he made none. He handed the tin dish as he
+had the biscuit to Duckling, who looked at it closely and put it on the
+deck.
+
+"The next?" said the captain.
+
+The Dutchman, looking as a man would who is conscious of having
+discharged a most important duty, hustled back among the others, and
+the man with the treacle came out.
+
+"This, sir, is what the steward's givin' us for molasses," said he,
+looking into the pannikin.
+
+The captain made no answer.
+
+"And though his senses are agin him, he goes on a callin' of it
+molasses."
+
+Another pause.
+
+"But to my way of thinkin' it ain't no more molasses than it's oysters.
+It's biled black-beetles, that's what I call it, and you want a
+toothpick as strong as a marlin-spike to get the shells out o' your
+teeth arter a meal of it."
+
+"Hand it up," said the captain, from whom every moment I was expecting
+an explosion of temper. He did not offer to taste the stuff, but
+inspected it with apparent attention, and tilted the vessel first this
+way and then that, that the treacle might run.
+
+"Here's your molasses," said he, handing down the pannikin. "What else
+is there?"
+
+"We're willin' to call this tea," said a man, holding up an earthenware
+jar filled with a black liquor; "but it ain't tea like what they sells
+ashore, an' it ain't tea like what I've bin used to drink on board
+other wessels. It's tea," continued he, looking first into the jar and
+then at the skipper, "and yet it ain't. Maybe it was growed in England,
+for there isn't no flavour of Chaney about it. It's too faint for
+'bacca-leaves, and it ain't sweet enough for liquorish. Fish here says
+it's the mustiness as makes it taste like senna."
+
+Here followed a pause, during which the men gazed eagerly at the
+skipper. I noticed some angry and even sinister countenances among
+them; and the cook looked as evil as a fiend, with his hard yellow face
+and gleaming eyes staring upwards under his eyebrows. But so far there
+had been nothing in the men's speeches and behaviour to alarm the most
+timid captain; and I thought it would require but little tact and a
+few kindly concessions to make them, on the whole, a hard-working and
+tractable crew.
+
+The captain having kept silence for some time, exchanged looks with
+Duckling, and called to know if the men had any more complaints to
+make. They talked among themselves, and Johnson answered "No."
+
+"Very well, then," said he. "I can do nothing for you here. There are
+no bake-houses yonder," nodding at the sea, "to get fresh bread from.
+You must wait till we get to Valparaiso."
+
+A regular growl came up from the men, and Johnson exclaimed--
+
+"We can't live on nothing till we get to Valparaiso."
+
+"What do you want me to do?" cried the skipper savagely.
+
+"It's not for us to dictate," replied Johnson. "All that the crew wants
+is grub fit to eat."
+
+"Put into Brest," exclaimed a voice. "It ain't fur off. There's good
+junk and biscuit to be got at Brest."
+
+"Who dares to advise me as to what I'm to do?" shouted the skipper in
+his furious way. "By Heaven, I'll break every bone in the scoundrel's
+body if he opens his infernal mutinous mouth again. I tell you I
+can't change the provisions here, and I'm not going to alter the
+ship's course with this wind astern, not if you were all starving in
+reality." But having said this he pulled up short, as if his temper
+were diverting him from the line of policy he had in his mind to
+follow; he lowered his voice and said, "I'll tell you what, my lads;
+you must make the provisions serve you for the present, and if I can
+make a fair wind of it, I'll haul round for some Spanish port: or if
+not there, I'll see what land is to be picked up."
+
+"You hear what the captain says, don't you?" growled Duckling.
+
+"It isn't us that minds waiting, it's our stomachs," said Fish, the
+small-faced man.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me you can't get a meal out of the food in your
+hands?" demanded the captain, pointing amongst them.
+
+"We'd rayther drink cold water than the tea," said one.
+
+"And the water ain't over-drinkable, neither," exclaimed another.
+
+"The cook shays te pork 'll gif us te cholera," said one of the
+Dutchmen.
+
+"We wouldn't mind if the bread an' molasses was right," cried Fish.
+"But they aren't. Nothen's right. The werry weevils ain't ordinary;
+they're longer an' fatter nor common bread-worms."
+
+"Hold your jaw!" bawled Duckling. "The captain has spoke you fairer
+than any skipper that ever I sailed under would have spoke. So now cut
+forward--do you hear?--and finish your breakfast. Cook, come out from
+behind the mainmast, you loafing nigger, and leave the main-deck, or
+I'll make you trot to show the others the road."
+
+He pulled a brass-belaying pin out of the rail and flourished it.
+The captain walked aft to the wheel, leaving Duckling to finish
+off with the men. They moved away, talking in low grumbling tones
+among themselves, manifestly dissatisfied with the result of their
+conference, and presently were all in the forecastle.
+
+"I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Royle," said Duckling, turning
+impudently upon me; "you must wake up, if you please, and help me to
+keep those fellows in their place. No use in staring and listening. You
+must talk to 'em and curse 'em, damme! do you understand, Mr. Royle?"
+
+"No, I don't understand," I replied. "I don't believe in cursing men.
+I've seen that sort of thing tried, but it never answered."
+
+"Oh, I suppose you are one of those officers who call all hands to
+prayers before you reef down, are you?" he asked, with a coarse,
+sneering laugh. "I don't think Captain Coxon will appreciate your
+services much if that's your kind."
+
+"I am sorry you should misunderstand me," I answered gravely. "I
+believe I can do my work and get others to do theirs without foul
+language and knocking men down."
+
+"Thunder and lightning! what spooney skipper nursed _you_ at his
+breast? Could you knock a man down if you tried?"
+
+I glanced at him with a smile, and saw him running his eyes over me
+as though measuring my strength. There was enough of me, perhaps, to
+make him require time for his calculations. Sinewy and vigorous as his
+ill-built frame was, I was quite a match for him--half a head taller,
+and weighed more, with heavier arms upon me and a deeper chest than he;
+and was eight and twenty, whilst he was nearly fifty.
+
+"I think," said I, "that I _could_ knock a man down if I tried. Perhaps
+two. But then I don't try, and must be badly provoked in order to try.
+The skipper who nursed me was not a New Orleans man, but an Englishman,
+and something better--an English gentleman. That means that no one on
+board his ship ever gave him occasion to use his fists."
+
+He muttered something about my thinking myself a very fine sort of
+bird, no doubt, but I could not catch all that he said owing to the
+incessant thundering of the gale; he then left me and joined the
+captain, who advanced to meet him, and they both went below.
+
+It was now pretty plain that I was unsuited for the taste and society
+of the two men with whom I was thrown. The captain saw I was not likely
+to help his paltry views, and that my sympathy was with the crew; and
+try as I might, I could _not_ disguise my real contempt for Duckling.
+They were great chums, and thoroughly relished each other's nature.
+They were both bullies, and, in addition, Duckling was a toady. Hence
+it was inevitable--but less from the subordinate position that I filled
+than from the dislike I had of these men's characters--that I should
+be an outsider, distrusted by the skipper as objecting to his dealings
+with the crew and capable of opposing them, and hated by Duckling for
+the contempt of him I could not disguise. Much as I regretted this
+result and had done what I could to avert it, now that it was thrust
+upon me, I resolved to meet it quietly. For the rest of that watch,
+therefore, I amused myself by shaping my plans, which simply amounted
+to a determination to do my duty as completely as I could, so as to
+deprive Coxon of all opportunity of making my berth more uncomfortable
+than it was; to hold my tongue, to take no notice of the skipper's
+doings, to steer as clear of Duckling as possible, and to quit the
+ship, if possible, at Valparaiso. How I kept these good resolutions you
+shall hear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+The weather mended next day, and we made all sail with a fine breeze,
+steering south-south-west. We had left the Downs on Tuesday, the 22nd
+of August, and on the 25th we found by observation that we had made a
+distance of over 900 miles, which, considering the heavy seas the ship
+had encountered and the depth to which she was loaded, was very good
+sailing.
+
+However, though we carried the strong north-westerly wind with us all
+day, it fell calm towards night, then shifted ahead, then drew away
+north, and then fell calm again. We were now well upon the skirts of
+the Bay of Biscay, and the heavy swell for which that stretch of sea is
+famous, did not fail us. All through the night we lay like the ship in
+the song, rolling abominably, with Coxon in a ferocious temper on deck,
+routing up the hands to man first the port, and then the starboard
+braces, bousing the yards about to every whiff of wind, like a madman
+in the Doldrums, until both watches were exhausted. All this work was
+put upon us, merely because the skipper was in a rage at the calm, and
+not caring to rest himself, determined that his crew should not; but
+for all the good this slueing the yards about did, he might as well
+have laid the mainyards aback, and waited until some wind really came.
+
+Early in the morning a light breeze sprang up aft, and the fore-topmast
+stun'-sail was run up, and the ship began to move again. This breeze
+held steady all day, and freshened a bit at night--but being right aft
+scarcely gave us more than six knots when liveliest. However, it saved
+the men's arms and legs, and enabled them to go about other and easier
+work than manning braces, stowing sails, and setting them again.
+
+And so till Wednesday, the 31st of August, on which day we were, to the
+best of my memory, in latitude 45° and longitude about 10°.
+
+The men during this time had been pretty quiet. The boatswain told me
+that grumbling among them was as regular as meal-times; but no murmurs
+came aft, no fresh complaints were made to the skipper. The reason was,
+I think, the crew believed that the skipper meant to touch at Madeira
+or one of the more southerly Canary Islands. That this was their notion
+was put into my head by a question asked me by a hand at the wheel
+when I was alone on deck: would I tell him where the ship was?
+
+I gave him the results of the sights taken at noon.
+
+"That's to the east'ard of Madeery, ain't it, sir?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He bent his eyes on the compass-card, and seemed to be reflecting on
+the ship's course. The subject dropped; but after he had been relieved,
+and was gone forward, I saw him talking to the rest of the watch: and
+one of them knelt down and drew some kind of figure with a piece of
+chalk upon the deck (it looked to me, and doubtless was, a rude chart
+of the ship's position), whereupon the cook began to jabber with great
+vehemence, extending his hands in the wildest way, and pulling one
+of the men close to him, and whispering in his ear. They noticed me
+watching them, presently, and broke up.
+
+Had I been on friendly terms with Coxon or Duckling, I should have
+made no delay in going to one or the other of them and communicating
+my misgivings; for misgivings I had, and pretty strong misgivings
+they were. But I perfectly well foresaw the reception my hints would
+meet with from both Duckling and the captain. I really believed that
+the latter disliked me enough now to convert my apprehension of
+trouble into some direct charge against me. He might swear that I had
+sympathized all along with the crew--and this I had admitted--and that
+if the mutiny which my fears foreboded broke out, I should be held
+directly responsible for it and treated as the ringleader. Besides,
+there was another consideration that influenced me: my misgivings
+_might_ be unfounded. I might make a report which would not only
+imperil my own position, but provoke him into assuming an attitude
+towards the men which would produce in reality the mutiny that might,
+as things went, never come to pass. This consideration more than
+anything else decided me to hold my tongue, to let matters take their
+course, and to leave the captain and his chief mate to use their own
+eyesight, instead of obtruding mine upon them.
+
+When I left the deck at four o'clock on the Wednesday afternoon, there
+was a pleasant breeze blowing directly from astern, and the ship was
+carrying all the canvas that would draw. The sky was clear, but pale,
+like a winter's sky, and there was a very heavy swell rolling up from
+the southward. The weather, on the whole, looked promising, and,
+despite the north-easterly wind, the temperature was so mild that I
+could have very well dispensed with my pilot jacket.
+
+There was something, however, about the aspect of the sun which struck
+me as new and strange. Standing high over the western horizon it should
+be brilliant enough: and yet it was possible to keep one's eye fixed
+upon it for some moments without pain. It hung indeed, a fluctuating
+molten globe in the sky, without any glory of rays. This seemed to me
+a real phenomenon, viewed with respect to the _apparent_ purity of the
+sky; but of course I understood that a mist or fog intervened between
+the sight and the sun, though I never before remembered having seen
+the sun's disc so dim in brilliancy and at the same time so _clean_ in
+outline in a blue sky.
+
+I looked at the barometer before entering my cabin and found a
+slight fall. Such a fall might betoken rain, or a change of wind
+to the southward. In truth, there is no telling what a rise or fall
+in the barometer _does_ betoken, beyond a change in the density of
+the atmosphere. I would any day rather trust an old sailor's or an
+old farmer's eye: and as to weather forecasts, based upon a thousand
+fantastic hobbies, I liken them to dreams, of which every one remembers
+the one or two that were verified, and forgets the immense number that
+were never fulfilled.
+
+Throughout the dog-watches the weather still held fair; but the glass
+had fallen another bit and the wind was dropping. Captain Coxon had
+very little to say to me now and I to him. I was just civil, and he was
+barely so; but when I was taking a glass in the cuddy preparatory to
+turning in for three hours, he asked me what I thought of the weather.
+
+"It's difficult to know what this swell means, sir," I answered.
+"Either it comes in advance of a gale or it follows a gale."
+
+"In advance," he said. "If you are going to turn in, keep your clothes
+on. There was a thundering gale in the sun this afternoon, and if you
+clap your nose over the ship's side you'll smell it coming."
+
+Oddly as he expressed himself, he was quite serious, and I understood
+him.
+
+As the wind grew more sluggish, the vessel rolled more heavily. I never
+was in a cuddy that groaned and strained more than this, owing to the
+mahogany fittings having shrunk and warped away from their fixings.
+Up through the skylights it was pitch dark, from the effect of the
+swinging lamps within; and though both skylights were closed, I could
+hear the sails flapping like sharp peals of artillery against the
+masts, and the gurgling, washing sob of the water as the roll of the
+ship brought it up through the scupper-holes.
+
+Just then Duckling overhead sang out to the men to get the fore-topmast
+stun'-sail in: and Coxon at once quitted the cabin and went on deck.
+There was something ominous in the calm and darkness of the night and
+the voluminous heaving of the sea, and I made up my mind to keep away
+from my cabin a while longer. I loaded a pipe and posted myself in a
+corner of the cuddy front. Had this been my first voyage, I don't think
+I should have found more difficulty in keeping my legs. The roll of the
+vessel was so heavy that it was almost impossible to walk. I gained the
+corner by dint of keeping my hands out and holding on to everything
+that came in my road; but even this nook was uncomfortable enough to
+remain in standing, for, taking the sea-line as my base, I was at
+one moment reclining at an angle of forty degrees, the next, I had to
+stiffen my legs forward to prevent myself from being shot like a stone
+out of the corner and projected to the other side of the deck.
+
+The men were at work getting in the fore-topmast stun'-sail, and some
+were aloft rigging in the boom. There was no air to be felt save the
+draughts wafted along the deck by the flapping canvas. Even where I
+stood I could hear the jar and shock of the rudder struck by the swell,
+and the grinding of the tiller-chains as the wheel kicked. The sky
+was thick with half a dozen spars sparely glimmering upon it here and
+there. The sea was black and oily, flashing fitfully with spaces of
+phosphorescent light which gleamed below the surface. But it was too
+dark to discern the extent and bulk of the swell: that was to be felt.
+
+Duckling's voice began to sound harshly, calling upon the men to bear
+a hand, and _their_ voices, chorusing up in the darkness, produced a
+curious effect. So far from my being able to make out their figures,
+it was as much as I could do to trace the outlines of the sails. After
+awhile they came down, and immediately Duckling ordered the fore
+and main royals to be furled. Then the fore and mizzen top-gallant
+halliards were let go, and the sails clewed up ready to be stowed when
+the men had done with the royals. So by degrees all the lighter sails
+were taken in, and then the whole of the watch was put to close-reef
+the mizzen-topsail.
+
+As I knew one watch was not enough to reef the other topsails, and
+that all hands would soon be called, I put my pipe in my pocket and
+got upon the poop. Duckling stood holding on to the mizzen-rigging,
+vociferating, bully-fashion, to the men. I walked to the binnacle and
+found that the vessel had no steerage way on her, and that her head was
+lying west, though she swung heavily four or five points either side
+of this to every swell that lifted her. The captain took no notice of
+me, and I went and stuck myself against the companion-hatchway and had
+a look around the horizon which I could not clearly see from my former
+position on the quarter-deck.
+
+The scene was certainly very gloomy. The deep, mysterious silence, made
+more impressive by the breathless rolling of the gigantic swell, and
+by the impenetrable darkness that overhung the water-circle, inspired
+a peculiar awe in the feelings. The rattle of the canvas overhead had
+been in some measure subdued; but the great topsails flapped heavily,
+and now and again the bell that hung just abaft the mainmast tolled
+with a single stroke.
+
+It was a relief to turn the eye from the black space of ocean to the
+deck of the ship catching a lustre from the cuddy lights.
+
+Duckling, perceiving my figure leaning against the hatchway, poked his
+nose into my face to see who I was.
+
+"I believed you were turned in," said he.
+
+"I thought all hands would be called, and wished to save myself
+trouble."
+
+"We shall close-reef at eight bells," said he, and marched away.
+
+This was an act of consideration towards the men, as it meant that the
+watch below would not be called until it was time for them to turn out.
+At all events the ship was snug enough now, come what might, even with
+two whole topsails on her. Having close-reefed the mizzen-topsail, the
+hands were now furling the mainsail, and only a little more work was
+needful to put the ship in trim for a hurricane. So I took Duckling's
+hint and laid down to get some sleep, first taking a peep at the glass
+and noting that it was dropping steadily.
+
+Sailors learn to go to sleep smartly and to get up smartly. And they
+also learn to extract refreshment out of a few winks, which is an
+art scarce any landsman that I am acquainted with ever succeeded in
+acquiring. I was awakened by one of the hands striking eight bells, and
+at once tumbled up and got on deck.
+
+The night was darker than it was when I had gone to my cabin; no star
+was now visible, an inky blackness overspread the confines of the
+deep, and inspired a sense of calm that was breathless, suffocating,
+insupportable. The heavy swell still rose and sunk the vessel, washing
+her sides to the height of the bulwarks, and making the rudder kick
+furiously.
+
+The moment Coxon saw me he told me to go forward and set all hands to
+close-reef the fore-topsail. I did his bidding, calling out the order
+as I went stumbling and sprawling along the main-deck, and letting go
+the halliards to wake up the men, after groping for them. Indeed, it
+was _pitch_ dark forward. I might have been stone-blind for anything
+I could see, barring the thin rays of the forecastle lamp glimmering
+faintly upon a few objects amidships.
+
+Owing to this darkness it was a worse job to reef the topsails than had
+it been blowing a hurricane in daylight. It was a quarter to one before
+both sails were reefed, and then the watch that had been on deck since
+eight o'clock turned in.
+
+Here were we now under almost bare poles, in a dead calm; and yet had
+the skipper ordered both the fore and mizzen topsails to be furled, he
+would not have been doing more than was justified by the extraordinary
+character of the night--the strange and monstrous sub-swell of the
+ocean, the opacity of the heavens, the sinister and phenomenal
+breathlessness and heat of the atmosphere.
+
+Duckling was below, lying at full length upon one of the cuddy benches,
+ready to start up at the first call. I glanced at him through the
+skylight, and wondered how on earth he kept himself steady on his
+back. I should have been dislodged by every roll as surely as it came.
+Perhaps he used his shoulder-blades as cleats to hold on to the sides
+of the bench; and to so wildly proportioned a man as Duckling, a great
+deal was possible.
+
+The card was swinging in the binnacle as before, and just now the
+ship's head was north-west. With more canvas upon the vessel her
+position would have been perilous by the impossibility of guessing from
+what quarter the wind would come--if it came at all. Even to be taken
+aback under close-reefed topsails might prove unpleasant enough, should
+a sudden gale come down and find the ship without way on her.
+
+The captain, who was on the starboard side of the wheel, called me over
+to him.
+
+"Are the decks clear?"
+
+"All clear, sir."
+
+"Fore-topsail sheets?"
+
+"Ready for running, sir."
+
+"How's her head now?" to the man at the helm.
+
+"Nor'-west, half north."
+
+"Keep a brisk look-out to the south'ard, sir," he said to me; "and sing
+out if you see the sky clearing."
+
+I saw him, by the binnacle-light, put his finger in his mouth and hold
+it up. But there was no other air to be felt than the short rush first
+one way, then another, as the ship rolled.
+
+Scarcely ten minutes had passed since he addressed me, when I saw what
+I took to be a ship's light standing clear upon the horizon, right
+astern.
+
+I was about to call out when another light sprang up just above it.
+Then a small, faint light, a little to the westward of these, then
+another.
+
+Owing to the peculiar character of the atmosphere these lights looked
+red, and so completely was I deceived by their appearance, that I
+halloed out--
+
+"Do you see those lights astern, sir? They look like a fleet of
+steamers coming up."
+
+But I had scarcely spoken when I knew that I had made a fool of
+myself. They were not ships' lights, _but stars_, and at once I
+comprehended the import of this sudden astral revelation.
+
+"Stand by the starboard braces!" roared the skipper; and the men, awake
+to a sense of a great and perhaps perilous change close at hand, came
+shambling and stumbling along the deck.
+
+A wonderful panorama was now being rapidly unfolded in the south.
+
+All down there the sky was clearing as if by magic, and the stars
+shining; but as I watched, great flying wreaths like mighty volumes
+of smoke pouring out of gigantic factory chimneys, came rushing over
+and obscuring them, though always leaving a few brightly burning
+in a foreground which advanced with astonishing rapidity towards
+the ship. To right and left of this point of the horizon, the sky
+cleared only to be obscured afresh by the flying clouds. Soon, amid
+the solemn pauses falling upon the ship between the intervals of her
+pitching, for she had now swung right before the swell, we could hear
+the coming whirlwind screeching along the surface of the water. The
+contrast of its approach with the oily, breathless, heaving surface
+of the sea around us and all ahead, and the utter stagnation of the
+air, produced an effect upon my mind, and, I believe, upon the minds
+of all others who were witnesses of the sight, to which no words
+could give expression--an emotion, if you like, of suspense that was
+almost terror, and yet terror deprived of pain by a wild and tingling
+curiosity.
+
+But such a gale as I am describing travels quickly: all overhead the
+sky was first cleared and then massed up with whirling clouds, before
+the wind struck us: the white surface of the sea, cleanly lined like
+the surf upon a beach, was plainly seen by us, even when the water all
+around was still unruffled; and _then_, with a prolonged and pealing
+yell, the gale and the spray it was lashing out of the sea were upon
+us. In a moment our decks were soaking--the masts creaked, and every
+shroud and stay sang to the sudden, mighty strain; the vessel staggered
+and reeled--stopped, as a heavy swell rolled under her bows, and threw
+her all aslant against the hurricane, which screeched and howled
+through the rigging, and then fled forwards under the yards, which had
+squared themselves as the starboard braces were slackened.
+
+It was lucky for the _Grosvenor_ that the gale struck her astern. So
+great was its fury that, had it taken her aback, I doubt if she would
+have righted.
+
+This furious wind had cleared the horizon, and the water-line all
+around was distinctly figured against the sky. The sea was a sheet
+of foam, and, what will scarcely seem credible, the swell _subsided_
+under the lateral pressure of the wind, so that for a short time we
+seemed to be racing along a level surface of froth. Large masses of
+this froth, bubbly and crackling like wood in a fire, were jogged clean
+off the water and struck the decks or sides of the ship with reports
+like the discharge of a pistol, and no more than a handful of water
+blown against my face hit me with such force, that for some moments I
+suffered the greatest torment, as though my eyes had been scalded, and
+I hardly knew whether I had not lost my sight.
+
+The wind was blowing true from the south and we were bowling before it
+due north, losing as much ground every five minutes as had taken us
+an hour to get during the day. Coxon, however, was _feeling_ the gale
+before he brought the ship close: at any moment, you see, the wind
+might chop round and blow a hurricane; though, to be sure, the sky with
+its torn masses of skurrying clouds had too wild an aspect to make us
+believe that this gale was likely to be of short duration.
+
+The sea now began to rise, and it was strange to watch it. First it
+boiled in short waves which the wind shattered and blew flat. But other
+waves rose, too solid for the wind to level: they increased in bulk as
+they ran, and broke in coils of spray, while fresh and larger waves
+succeeded, and the ship began to pitch quickly in the young sea.
+
+The wonderful violence of the wind could not be well appreciated by us
+who were running before it; but when the crew manned the braces and
+the helm was put to starboard, it seemed as if the wind would blow
+the ship out of the water. She came to slowly, laying her main-deck
+level with the sea, and the screeching of the wind was diabolical and
+absolutely terrifying to listen to. With the weather leeches just
+lifting, she was still well away from her course, and her progress
+under all three topsails was all leeway.
+
+But I soon saw that she could not carry two of the three topsails,
+owing to the tremendous sudden pressure put upon the masts by her
+lurches to windward; and sure enough Duckling (who had turned out along
+with all hands when the gale had first struck the ship) roared through
+a speaking-trumpet to clew up and furl the fore and mizzen topsails.
+
+It took all hands to deal with each sail separately, and I helped to
+stow the fore-topsail.
+
+To be up aloft in weather of the kind I am describing is an experience
+no landsman can realize by imagination. To begin with, it is an immense
+job to _breathe_, for the wind stands like something solid in your
+mouth, and up your nostrils, and makes the expelling of your breath a
+task fitter for a one-horse engine than a pair of human lungs. Then you
+have two remorseless forces at work in the shape of the wind and the
+sail doing their utmost to hurl you from the yard. The fore-topsail
+was snugged as well as bunt-lines and clew-lines, hauled taut as steel
+bars, could bring it; and besides, there were already three reefs in
+it. And yet it stood out like cast-iron, and all hands might have
+danced a horn-pipe upon it without putting a crease into the canvas
+with their united weight. We had to roar out to Duckling to put the
+helm down, and spill the sail, before we could get hold of it; and so
+fiercely did the canvas shake in the hurricane as the ship came to,
+that I, who stood in the bunt, expected to see the hands out at the
+yard-arms shaken off the foot-ropes, and precipitated into the sea.
+
+But what a wildly picturesque scene was the ocean surveyed from the
+height of the foremast! The sea was now heavy, and furiously lashing
+the weather bow; avalanches of spray ran high up the side, and were
+blown in a veil of hurtling sleet and froth across the forecastle.
+Casting my eyes backwards, the ship looked forlornly naked with no
+other canvas on her than the close-reefed main-topsail, with the bare
+outlines of her main and after yards, and the slack ropes and lines
+blown to leeward in semicircles, surging to and fro in long sweeps
+against the stars, which glimmered and vanished between the furiously
+whirling clouds. The hull of the vessel looked strangely narrow and
+long, contemplated from my elevation, upon the boiling seas; the
+froth of the water made an artificial light, and objects on deck were
+clear now, which, before the gale burst upon us, had been wrapped in
+impenetrable darkness.
+
+When the sail was furled, all hands laid down as smartly as they could;
+but just under the foretop the rush of wind was so powerful, that when
+I dropped my leg over the edge to feel with my foot for the futtock
+shrouds, my weight was entirely sustained and buoyed up, and I believe
+that had I let go with my hands, I should have been blown securely
+against the fore-shrouds and there held.
+
+The ship was now as snug as we could make her, hove to under
+close-reefed main-topsail and fore-topmast staysail, riding tolerably
+well, though, to be sure, the wind had not yet had time to raise much
+of a sea. The crew were fagged by their heavy work, and the captain
+ordered the steward to serve out a tot of grog apiece to them, more out
+of policy than pity, I think, as he would remember what was in their
+minds respecting their provisions, and how the ship's safety depended
+on their obedience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+All that night it blew terribly hard, and raised as wild and raging a
+sea as ever I remember hearing or seeing described. During my watch,
+that is, from midnight until four o'clock, the wind veered a couple of
+points, but had gone back again only to blow harder, just as though it
+had stepped out of its way a trifle to catch extra breath.
+
+I was quite worn out by the time my turn came to go below, and though
+the vessel was groaning like a live creature in its death-agonies, and
+the seas thumping against her with such shocks as kept me thinking that
+she was striking hard ground, I fell asleep as soon as my head touched
+the pillow, and never moved until routed out by Duckling four hours
+afterwards.
+
+All this time the gale had not bated a jot of its violence, and the
+ship laboured so heavily that I had the utmost difficulty in getting
+out of the cuddy on to the poop. When I say that the decks fore and
+aft were streaming wet, I convey no notion of the truth; the main-deck
+was simply _afloat_, and every time the ship rolled, the water on her
+deck rushed in a wave against the bulwarks and shot high in the air, to
+mingle sometimes with fresh and heavy inroads of the sea, both falling
+back upon the deck with the boom of a gun.
+
+I had already ascertained from Duckling that the well had been sounded
+and the ship found dry; and therefore, since we were tight below, it
+mattered little what water was shipped above, as the hatches were
+securely battened down fore and aft, and the mast-coats unwrung. But
+still she laboured under the serious disadvantage of being overloaded;
+and the result was her fore parts were being incessantly swept by seas
+which at times completely hid her forecastle in spray.
+
+Shortly after breakfast Captain Coxon sent me forward to despatch
+a couple of hands on to the jib-boom to snug the inner jib, which
+looked to be rather shakily stowed. I managed to dodge the water on
+the main-deck by waiting until it rolled to the starboard scuppers,
+and then cutting ahead as fast as I could; but just as I got upon the
+forecastle, I was saluted by a green sea which carried me off my legs
+and would have swept me down on the main-deck had I not held on stoutly
+with both hands to one of the fore shrouds. The water nearly drowned
+me, and kept me sneezing and coughing for ten minutes afterwards. But
+it did me no further mischief, for I was encased in good oilskins and
+sou'wester, which kept me as dry as a bone inside.
+
+Two ordinary seamen got upon the jib-boom, and I bade them keep a
+good hold, for the ship sometimes danced her figurehead under water
+and buried her spritsail yard, and when she sank her stern her flying
+jib-boom stood up like the mizzen-mast. I waited until this job of
+snugging the sail was finished, and then made haste to get off the
+forecastle, where the seas flew so continuously and heavily that had
+I not kept a sharp look-out I should several times have been knocked
+overboard.
+
+Partly out of curiosity and partly with a wish to hearten the men, I
+looked into the forecastle before going aft. There were sliding doors
+let into the entrance on either side the windlass, but one of them was
+kept half open to admit air, the fore-scuttle above being closed. The
+darkness here was made visible by an oil-lamp, in shape resembling a
+tin coffee-pot with a wick in the spout, which burnt black and smokily.
+The deck was up to my ankles in water, which gurgled over the pile
+of swabs that lay at the open entrance. It took my eye some moments
+to distinguish objects in the gloom, and then by degrees the strange
+interior was revealed. A number of hammocks were swung against the
+upper deck, and around the forecastle were two rows of bunks, one atop
+of the other. Here and there were sea-chests lashed to the deck, and
+these, with the huge windlass, a range of chain-cable, lengths of rope,
+odds and ends of pots and dishes, with here a pair of breeches hanging
+from a hammock, and there a row of oilskins swinging from a beam,
+pretty well made up all the furniture that met my eye.
+
+The whole of the crew were below. Some of the men lay smoking in their
+bunks, others in their hammocks with their boots over the edge; one
+was patching a coat, another greasing his boots, others were seated in
+a group talking, whilst under the lamp were a couple of men playing
+at cards upon a chest, three or four watching and holding on by the
+hammocks over their heads.
+
+A man, lying in his bunk with his face towards me, started up and sent
+his legs, encased in blanket trousers and brown woollen stockings,
+flying out.
+
+"Here's Mr. Royle, mates!" he called out. "Let's ask him the name of
+the port the captain means to touch at for proper food, for we aren't
+goin' to wait much longer."
+
+"Don't ask me any questions of that kind, my lads," I replied promptly,
+seeing a general movement of heads in the bunks and hammocks. "I'd
+give you proper victuals if I had the ordering of them; and I have
+spoken to Captain Coxon about you, and I am sure he will see this
+matter put to rights."
+
+I had difficulty in making my voice heard, for the striking of the seas
+against the ship's bows filled the place with an overwhelming volume of
+sound, and the hollow, deafening thunder was increased by the uproar of
+the ship's straining timbers.
+
+"Who the devil thinks," said a voice from a hammock, "that we're going
+to let ourselves be grinded as we was last night, without proper
+wittles to support us? I'd rather have signed articles for a coal-barge
+with drownded rats to eat from Gravesend to Whitstable, than shipped
+in this here cursed wessel, where the bread's just fit to make savages
+retch!"
+
+I had not bargained for this, but had merely meant to address them
+cheerily, with a few words of approval of the smart way in which they
+had worked the ship in the night. Seeing that my presence would do
+no good, I turned about and left the forecastle, hearing as I came
+away one of the Dutchmen cry out: "Look here, Mishter Rile, vill you
+be pleashed to ssay when we are to hov' something to eat?--for, by
+Gott! ve vill kill te dom pigs in the long-boat, if the shkipper don't
+mindt--so look out!"
+
+As ill-luck would have it, Captain Coxon was at the break of the poop,
+and saw me come out of the forecastle. He waited until he had got me
+alongside of him, when he asked me what I was doing among the men.
+
+"I looked in to give them a good word for the work they did last
+night," I answered.
+
+"And who asked you to give them a good word, as you call it?"
+
+"I have never had to wait for orders to encourage a crew."
+
+"Mind what you are about, sir!" he exclaimed in a voice tremulous with
+rage. "I see through your game, and I'll put a stopper upon it that you
+won't like."
+
+"What game, sir? Let me have your meaning."
+
+"An infernal mutinous game!" he roared. "Don't talk to me, sir! I know
+you! I've had my eye upon you! You'll play false if you can, and are
+trying to smother up your damned rebel meanings with genteel airs! Get
+away, sir!" he bellowed, stamping his foot. "Get away aft! You're a
+lumping, useless encumbrance! But, by thunder! I'll give you two for
+every one you try to give me! So stand by!"
+
+And apparently half-mad with his rage he staggered away in the
+very direction in which he had told me to go, and stood near the
+wheel, glaring upon me with a white face, which looked indescribably
+malevolent in the fur cap and ear protectors that ornamented it.
+
+I was terribly vexed by this rudeness, which I was powerless to resist,
+and regretted my indiscretion in entering the forecastle after the
+politic resolutions I had formed. However, Captain Coxon's ferocity
+was nothing new to me; truly I believed he was not quite right in his
+mind, and expected, as in former cases, that he would come round a bit
+by-and-by, when his insane temper had passed. Still, his insinuations
+were highly dangerous, not to speak of their offensiveness. It was no
+joke to be charged, even by a madman, with striving to arouse the crew
+to mutiny. Nevertheless, I tried to console myself as best I could
+by reflecting that he could not prove his charges; that I need only
+endure his insolence for a few weeks, and that there was always a law
+to vindicate me and punish him should his evil temper betray him into
+any acts of cruelty against me.
+
+The gale, at times the severest that I was ever in, lasted three
+days, during which the ship drove something like eighty miles to the
+north-west. The sea on the afternoon of the third day was appalling:
+had the ship attempted to run, she would have been pooped and smothered
+in a minute; but lying close, she rode fairly well, though there
+were moments when I held my breath as she sunk into a hollow like a
+coal-mine, filled with the astounding noise of boiling water, really
+believing that the immense waves which came hurtling towards us with
+solid, sharp, transparent ridges, out of which the wind tore lumps of
+water and flung them through the rigging of the ship, must overwhelm
+the vessel before she could rise to it.
+
+The fury of the tempest and the violence of the sea, which the boldest
+could not contemplate without feeling that the ship was every moment in
+more or less peril, kept the crew subdued, and they eat as best they
+could the provisions without complaint. However, it needed nothing
+less than a storm to keep them quiet; for on the second day a sea
+extinguished the galley-fire, and until the gale abated no cooking
+could be done; so that the men had to put up with cold water and
+biscuit. Hence all hands were thrown upon the ship's bread for two
+days, and the badness of it, therefore was made even more apparent than
+heretofore, when its wormy mouldiness was in some degree qualified by
+the nauseousness of bad salt pork and beef, and the sickly flavour of
+damaged tea.
+
+As I had anticipated, the captain came round a little a few hours
+after his insulting attack upon me. I think his temper frightened
+him when it had reference to me. Like others of his breed, he was a
+bit of a cur at bottom: my character was a trifle beyond him, and he
+was ignorant enough to hate and fear what he could not understand.
+Be this as it may, he made some rough attempts at a rude kind of
+politeness when I went below to get some grog, and condescended to say
+that when I had been to sea as long as he, I would know that the most
+ungrateful rascals in the world were sailors; that every crew he had
+sailed with had always taken care to invent some grievance to growl
+over--either the provisions were bad, or the work too heavy, or the
+ship unseaworthy--and that long ago he had made up his mind never to
+pay attention to their complaints, since no sooner would one wrong be
+redressed, than another would be coined and shoved under his nose.
+
+I took this opportunity of assuring him that I had never willingly
+listened to the complaints of the men, and that I was always annoyed
+when they spoke to me about the provisions, as I had nothing whatever
+to do with that matter; and that so far from my wishing to stir up
+the men into rebellion, my conduct had been uniformly influenced by
+the desire to conciliate them and represent their condition as very
+tolerable, so as to repress any tendency to disaffection which they
+might foment among themselves.
+
+To this he made no reply, and soon afterwards we parted; but all next
+day he was sullen again, and never addressed me save to give an order.
+
+On the evening of the third day the gale broke; the glass had risen
+since the morning, but until the first dog-watch the wind did not bate
+one iota of its violence, and the horizon still retained its stormy
+and threatening aspect. The clouds then broke in the west, and the
+setting sun shone forth with deep crimson light upon the wilderness of
+mountainous waters. The wind fell quickly, then went round to the west,
+and blew freshly; but there was a remarkable softness and sweetness in
+the feel and taste of it. A couple of reefs were at once shaken out of
+the main-topsail, and sail made. By midnight the heavy sea had subsided
+into a deep, long, rolling swell, still strangely enough coming from
+the south; but the fresh westerly wind held the ship steady, and for
+the first time for nearly a hundred hours we were able to move about
+the decks with comparative comfort. Early next morning the watch were
+set to wash down and clear up the decks, and when I left my cabin at
+eight o'clock, I found the weather bright and warm, with a blue sky
+shining among heavy, white, April-looking clouds, and the ship making
+seven knots under all plain sail. The decks were dry and comfortable,
+and the ship had a habitable and civilized look by reason of the row of
+clothes hung by the seamen to dry on the forecastle.
+
+It was half-past nine o'clock, and I was standing near the taffrail
+looking at a shoal of porpoises playing some few hundreds of feet
+astern, when the man who was steering asked me to look in the direction
+to which he pointed, that was, a little to the right of the bowsprit,
+and say if there was anything to be seen there; for he had caught sight
+of something black upon the horizon twice, but could not detect it now.
+
+I turned my eyes towards the quarter of the sea indicated, but could
+discern nothing whatever; and, telling him that what he had seen was
+probably a wave which, standing higher than its fellows, will sometimes
+show black a long distance off, walked to the fore part of the poop.
+
+The breeze still held good and the vessel was slipping easily through
+the water, though the southerly swell made her roll, and at times shook
+the wind out of the sails. The skipper had gone to lie down, being
+pretty well exhausted, I dare say, for he had kept the deck for the
+greater part of three nights running. Duckling was also below. Most of
+my watch were on the forecastle, sitting or lying in the sun, which
+shone very warm upon the decks; the hens under the long-boat were
+chattering briskly, and the cocks crowing and the pigs grunting with
+the comfort of the warmth.
+
+Suddenly, as the ship rose, I distinctly beheld something black out
+away upon the horizon, showing just under the foot of the foresail.
+It vanished instantly; but I was now satisfied, and went for the glass
+which lay upon brackets just under the companion. I then told the man
+who was steering to keep her away a couple of points for a few moments,
+and resting the glass against the mizzen-royal backstay, pointed it
+towards the place where I had seen the black object.
+
+For some moments nothing but sea or sky filled the field of the glass
+as the ship rose and fell; but all at once there leaped into this
+field the hull of a ship, deep as her main-chains in the water, which
+came and went before my eye as the long seas lifted or dropped in the
+foreground. I managed to keep her sufficiently long in view to perceive
+that she was totally dismasted.
+
+"It's a wreck," said I, turning to the man; "let her come to again and
+luff a point. There may be living creatures aboard of her."
+
+Knowing what sort of man Captain Coxon was, I do not think that I
+should have had the hardihood to luff the ship a point out of her
+course had it involved the bracing of the yards; for the songs of the
+men would certainly have brought him on deck, and I might have provoked
+some ugly insolence. But the ship was going free, and would head more
+westerly without occasioning further change than slightly slackening
+the weather braces of the upper yards. This I did quietly, and the
+dismasted hull was brought right dead on end with our flying jib-boom.
+The men now caught sight of her, and began to stare and point, but did
+not sing out as they saw by the telescope in my hand that I perceived
+her. The breeze unhappily began to slacken somewhat, owing perhaps to
+the gathering heat of the sun; our pace fell off, and a full hour
+passed before we brought the wreck near enough to see her permanently,
+for up to this she had been constantly vanishing under the rise of the
+swell. She was now about two miles off, and I took a long and steady
+look at her through the telescope. It was a black hull, with painted
+ports. The deck was flush fore and aft, and there was a good-sized
+house just before where the mainmast should have been. This house was
+uninjured, though the galley was split up and to starboard stood up in
+splinters like the stump of a tree struck by lightning. No boats could
+be seen aboard of her. Her jib-boom was gone, and so were all three
+masts, clean cut off at the deck, as though a hand-saw had done it; but
+the mizzen-mast was alongside, held by the shrouds and backstays, and
+the port main and fore shrouds streamed like serpents from her chains
+into the water. I reckoned at once that she must be loaded with timber,
+for she never could keep afloat at that depth with any other kind of
+cargo in her.
+
+She made a most mournful and piteous object in the sunlight, sluggishly
+rolling to the swell which ran in transparent volumes over her sides
+and foamed around the deck-house. Once, when her stern rose, I read the
+name _Cecilia_ in broad white letters.
+
+I was gazing at her intently in the effort to witness some indication
+of living thing on board, when, to my mingled consternation and horror,
+I witnessed an arm project through the window of the deck-house, and
+frantically wave what resembled a white handkerchief. As none of the
+men called out, I judged this signal was not perceptible to the naked
+eye, and in my excitement I shouted--
+
+"There's a living man on board of her, my lads!" dropped the glass,
+and ran aft to call the captain.
+
+I met him coming up the companion-ladder. The first thing he said was,
+"You're out of your course," and looked up at the sails.
+
+"There's a wreck yonder!" I cried, pointing eagerly, "with a man on
+board signalling to us."
+
+"Get me the glass," he said sulkily, and I picked it up, and gave it to
+him.
+
+He looked at the wreck for some moments, and addressing the man at the
+wheel, exclaimed, making a movement with his hand--
+
+"Keep her away. Where the devil are you steering to?"
+
+"Good Heaven!" I ejaculated; "there's a man on board--there may be
+others!"
+
+"Damnation!" he exclaimed, between his teeth; "what do you mean by
+interfering with me? Keep her away!" he roared out.
+
+During this time we had drawn sufficiently near to the wreck to enable
+the sharper-sighted among the hands to remark the signal; and they were
+calling out that there was somebody flying a handkerchief aboard the
+hull.
+
+"Captain Coxon," said I, in as firm a voice as I could command--for I
+was nearly in as great a rage as he, and rendered insensible to all
+consequences by his inhumanity--"if you bear away, and leave that man
+yonder to sink with that wreck, when he can be saved with very little
+trouble, you will become as much a murderer as any ruffian who stabs a
+man asleep."
+
+When I had said this, Coxon turned black in the face with passion.
+His eyes protruded, his hands and fingers worked as though he were
+under some electrical process, and I saw for the first time in all my
+life, a sight I had always laughed at as a bit of impossible novelist
+description--a mouth foaming with rage. He rushed aft just over
+Duckling's cabin, and stamped with all his might.
+
+"Now," thought I, "they may try to murder me!" And without a word, I
+pulled off my coat, seized a belaying-pin, and stood ready, resolved
+that, happen what might, I would give the first man who should lay his
+fingers on me something to remember me by whilst he had breath in his
+body.
+
+The men, not quite understanding what was happening, but seeing that
+a "row" was taking place, came off the forecastle, and advanced by
+degrees along the main-deck. Among them I noticed the cook, muttering
+to one or the other who stood near.
+
+Mr. Duckling, awakened by the violent clattering over his head, came
+running up the companion with a bewildered, sleepy look in his face.
+The captain grasped him by the arm, and pointing to me, cried out with
+an oath, "that that villain was breeding a mutiny on board, and, he
+believed, wanted to murder him and Duckling."
+
+I at once answered, "Nothing of the kind! There is a man miserably
+perishing on board that sinking wreck, Mr. Duckling, and he ought to
+be saved. My lads!" I cried, addressing the men on the main-deck, "is
+there a sailor among you all who would have the heart to leave that man
+yonder without an effort to rescue him?"
+
+"No, sir!" shouted one of them. "We'll save the man, and if the skipper
+refuses we'll make him!"
+
+"Luff!" I called to the man at the wheel.
+
+"Luff, at your peril!" screamed the skipper.
+
+"Aft here, some hands," I cried, "and lay the main-yard aback. Let go
+the port-main braces!"
+
+The captain came running towards me.
+
+"By the living God!" I cried, in a fury, grasping the heavy brass
+belaying-pin, "if you come within a foot of me, Captain Coxon, I'll
+dash your brains out!"
+
+My attitude, my enraged face and menacing gesture, produced the desired
+effect. He stopped dead, turned a ghastly white, and looked round at
+Duckling.
+
+"What do you mean by this (etc.) conduct, you (etc.) mutinous
+scoundrel!" roared Duckling, with a volley of foul language.
+
+"Give him one for himself if he says too much, Mr. Royle!" sung out
+some hoarse voice on the main-deck, "we'll back yer!" And then came
+cries of "They're a cursed pair o' murderers!" "Who run the smack
+down?" "Who lets men drown?" "Who starves honest men?" This last
+exclamation was followed by a roar.
+
+The whole of the crew were now on deck, having been aroused by our
+voices. Some of them were looking on with a grin; others with an
+expression of fierce curiosity. It was at once understood that I was
+making a stand against the captain and chief mate, and a single glance
+at them assured me that by one word I could set the whole of them on
+fire to do my bidding even to shedding blood.
+
+In the mean time the man at the wheel had luffed until the weather
+leeches were flat and the ship scarcely moving. And at this moment,
+that the skipper might know their meaning, a couple of hands jumped
+aft and let go the weather main-braces. I took care to keep my eyes
+on Coxon and the mate, fully prepared for any attack that one or both
+might make on me. Duckling eyed me furiously, but in silence, evidently
+baffled by my resolute air and the posture of the men. Then he said
+something to the captain, who looked exhausted and white and haggard
+with his useless passion. They walked over to the lee-side of the poop,
+and after a short conference the captain, to my surprise, went below,
+and Duckling came forward.
+
+"There's no objection," he said, "to your saving the man's life, if you
+want. Lower away the starboard quarter-boat, and you go along in her,"
+he added to me, uttering the last words in such a thick voice that I
+thought he was choking.
+
+"Come along, some of you," I cried out, hastily putting on my coat; and
+in less than a minute I was in the boat with the rudder and thole-pins
+shipped and four hands ready to out oars as soon as we touched the
+water.
+
+Duckling began to fumble at one of the boat's falls.
+
+"Don't let him lower away!" roared out one of the men in the boat.
+"He'll let us go with a run. He'd like to see us drownded."
+
+Duckling fell back scowling with fury, and, shoving his head over
+as the boat sank quietly into the water, he discharged a volley of
+execrations at us, saying that he would shoot some of us, if he swung
+for it, before he was done; and especially applying a heap of abusive
+terms to me.
+
+The fellow pulling the bow oar laughed in his face, and another shouted
+out, "We'll teach you to say your prayers yet, you ugly old sinner!"
+
+We got away from the ship's side cleverly, and in a short time were
+rowing fast for the wreck. The excitement under which I laboured made
+me reckless of the issue of this adventure. The sight of the lonely man
+upon the wreck, coupled with the unmanly, brutal intention of Coxon to
+leave him to his fate, had goaded me into a state of mind infuriate
+enough to have done and dared everything to _compel_ Coxon to save him.
+He might call it mutiny, but I called it humanity, and I was prepared
+to stand or fall by my theory. The hate the crew had for their captain
+and chief mate was quite strong enough to guarantee me against any foul
+play on the part of Coxon, otherwise I might have prepared myself to
+see the ship fill and stand away and leave us alone on the sea with
+the wreck. One of the men in the boat suggested this; but another
+immediately answered: "They'd pitch the skipper overboard if he gave
+such an order, and glad o' the chance. There's no love for 'em among
+us, I can tell you, and by ---- there'll be bloody work done aboard the
+_Grosvenor_ if things aren't mended soon, as you'll see."
+
+They all four pulled at their oars savagely as these words were spoken,
+and I never saw such sullen and ferocious expressions on men's faces as
+came into theirs when they fixed their eyes as with one accord upon the
+ship.
+
+_She_, deep as she was, looked a beautiful model on the mighty surface
+of the water, rolling with marvellous grace to the swell, the strength
+and volume of which made me feel my littleness and weakness as it
+lifted the small boat with irresistible power. There was wind enough
+to keep her sails full upon her graceful, slender masts, and the
+brass-work upon her deck flashed brilliantly as she rolled from side to
+side.
+
+Strange contrast to look from her to the broken and desolate picture
+ahead! My eyes were rivetted upon it now with new and intense emotion,
+for by this time I could discern that the person who was waving to us
+was a female--woman or girl I could not yet make out--and that her hair
+was like a veil of gold behind her swaying arm.
+
+"It's a woman!" I cried in my excitement; "it's no man at all. Pull
+smartly, my lads, pull smartly, for God's sake!"
+
+The men gave way stoutly, and the swell favouring us, we were soon
+close to the wreck. The girl, as I now perceived she was, waved her
+handkerchief wildly as we approached; but my attention was occupied
+in considering how we could best board the wreck without injury to
+the boat. She lay broadside to us, with her stern on our right, and
+was not only rolling heavily with wallowing, squelching movements,
+but was swirling the heavy mizzen-mast that lay alongside through the
+water each time she went over to starboard, so that it was necessary
+to approach her with the greatest caution to prevent our boat from
+being stove in. Another element of danger was the great flood of water
+which she took in over her shattered bulwarks, first on this side, then
+on that, discharging the torrent again into the sea according as she
+rolled. This water came from her like a cataract, and in a second would
+fill and sink the boat unless extreme care were taken to keep clear of
+it.
+
+I waved my hat to the poor girl to let her know that we saw her and had
+come to save her, and steered the boat right around the wreck that I
+might observe the most practicable point for boarding her.
+
+She appeared to be a vessel of about 700 tons. The falling of her
+masts had crushed her port bulwarks level with the deck, and part of
+her starboard bulwarks was also smashed to pieces. Her wheel was gone,
+and the heavy seas that had swept her deck had carried away capstans,
+binnacle, hatchway gratings, pumps--everything, in short, but the
+deck-house and the remnants of the galley. I particularly noticed a
+strong iron boat's davit twisted up like a corkscrew. She was full of
+water, and lay as deep as her main-chains, but her bows stood high, and
+her fore-chains were out of the sea. It was miraculous to see her keep
+afloat as the long swell rolled over her in a cruel, foaming succession
+of waves.
+
+Though these plain details impressed themselves upon my memory, I
+did not seem to notice anything, in the anxiety that possessed me
+to rescue the lonely creature in the deck-house. It would have been
+impossible to keep a footing upon the main-deck without a life-line
+or something to hold on by; and seeing this and forming my resolutions
+rapidly, I ordered the man in the bows of the boat to throw in his
+oar and exchange places with me, and head the boat for the starboard
+port-chains. As we approached I stood up with one foot planted on the
+gunwale ready to spring; the broken shrouds were streaming aft and
+alongside, so that if I missed the jump and fell into the water there
+was plenty of stuff to catch hold of.
+
+"Gently--'vast rowing--ready to back astern smartly!" I cried, as we
+approached. I waited a moment: the hull rolled towards us, and the
+succeeding swell threw up our boat; the deck, though all aslant, was on
+a line with my feet. I sprang with all my strength, and got well upon
+the deck, but fell heavily as I reached it. However, I was up again in
+a moment, and ran forward out of the wash of the water.
+
+Here was a heap of gear, staysail and jib-halliards and other ropes,
+some of the ends swarming overboard. I hauled in one of these ends,
+but found I could not clear the raffle; but looking round, I perceived
+a couple of coils of line, spare stun'-sail tacks or halliards I took
+them to be, lying close against the foot of the bowsprit. I immediately
+seized the end of one of these coils and flung it into the boat,
+telling them to drop clear of the wreck astern; and when they had
+backed as far as the length of line permitted, I bent on the end of the
+other coil and paid that out until the boat was some fathoms astern.
+I then made my end fast, and sung out to one of the men to get on
+board by the starboard mizzen-chains and to bring the end of the line
+with him. After waiting a few minutes, the boat being hidden, I saw
+the fellow come scrambling over the side with a red face, his clothes
+and hair streaming, he having fallen overboard. He shook himself like
+a dog, and crawled with the line, on his hands and knees, a short
+distance forward, then hauled the line taut and made it fast.
+
+"Tell them to bring the boat round here," I cried, "and lay off on
+their oars until we are ready. And you get hold of this line and work
+yourself up to me."
+
+Saying which I advanced along the deck, clinging tightly with both
+hands. It very providentially happened that the door of the deck-house
+faced the forecastle within a few feet of where the remains of the
+galley stood. There would be, therefore, less risk in opening it than
+had it faced beam-wise; for the water, as it broke against the sides of
+the house, disparted clear of the fore and after parts; that is, the
+great bulk of it ran clear, though, of course, a foot's depth of it at
+least surged against the door.
+
+I called out to the girl to open the door quickly, as it slided in
+grooves like a panel, and was not to be stirred from the outside. The
+poor creature appeared mad, and I repeated my request three times
+without inducing her to leave the window. Then, not believing that she
+understood me, I cried out, "Are you English?"
+
+"Yes," she replied. "For God's sake, save us!"
+
+"I cannot get you through that window," I exclaimed. "Rouse yourself
+and open that door, and I will save you."
+
+She now seemed to comprehend, and drew in her head. By this time the
+man out of the boat had succeeded in sliding along the rope to where
+I stood, though the poor devil was nearly drowned on the road; for
+when about half-way the hull took in a lump of a swell which swept
+him right off his legs, and he was swung hard a-starboard, holding on
+for his life. However, he recovered himself smartly when the water was
+gone, and came along hand over fist, snorting and cursing in wonderful
+style.
+
+Meanwhile, though I kept firm hold of the life-line, I took care to
+stand where the inroads of water were not heavy, waiting impatiently
+for the door to open. It shook in the grooves, tried by a feeble hand;
+then a desperate effort was made, and it slid a couple of inches.
+
+"That will do!" I shouted. "Now, then, my lad, catch hold of me with
+one hand and the line with the other."
+
+The fellow took a firm grip of my monkey-jacket, and I made for the
+door. The water washed up to my knees, but I soon inserted my fingers
+in the crevice of the door and thrust it open.
+
+The house was a single compartment, though I had expected to find
+it divided into two. In the centre was a table that travelled on
+stanchions from the roof to the deck. On either side were a couple of
+bunks. The girl stood near the door. In a bunk to the left of the door
+lay an old man with white hair. Prostrate on his back, on the deck,
+with his arms stretched against his ears, was the corpse of a man, well
+dressed; and in a bunk on the right sat a sailor, who, when he saw me,
+yelled out and snapped his fingers, making horrible grimaces.
+
+Such in brief the _coup d'oeil_ of that weird interior as it met my
+eyes.
+
+I seized the girl by the arm.
+
+"You first," said I. "Come--there is no time to be lost."
+
+But she shrank back, pressing against the door with her hand to prevent
+me from pulling her, crying in a husky voice, and looking at the old
+man with the white hair. "My father first!--my father first!"
+
+"You shall all be saved, but you must obey me. Quickly now!" I
+exclaimed passionately, for a heavy sea at that moment flooded the
+ship, and a rush of water swamped the house through the open door, and
+washed the corpse on the deck up into a corner.
+
+Grasping her firmly, I lifted her off her feet, and went staggering
+to the life-rope, slinging her light body over my shoulder as I went.
+Assisted by my man, I gained the bow of the wreck, and, hailing the
+boat, ordered it alongside.
+
+"One of you," cried I, "stand ready to receive this lady when I give
+the signal."
+
+I then told the man who was with me to jump into the fore-chains, which
+he instantly did. The wreck lurched heavily to port. "Stand by, my
+lads!" I shouted. Over she came again, with the water swooping along
+the main-deck. The boat rose high, and the fore-chains were submerged
+to the height of the man's knees. "Now!" I called, and lifted the girl
+over. She was seized by the man in the chains and pushed towards the
+boat; the fellow standing in the bow of the boat caught her, and at the
+same moment down sank the boat, and the wreck rolled wearily over. But
+the girl was safe.
+
+"Hurrah, my lad!" I sung out. "Up with you--there are others
+remaining;" and I went sprawling along the line to the deck-house,
+there to encounter another rush of water, which washed as high as my
+thighs, and fetched me such a thump in the stomach, that I thought I
+must have died of suffocation.
+
+I was glad to find that the old man had got out of his bunk and was
+standing at the door.
+
+"Is my poor girl safe, sir?" he exclaimed, with the same huskiness of
+voice that had grated so unpleasantly in the girl's tone.
+
+"Quite safe--come along."
+
+"Thanks be to Almighty God!" he ejaculated, and burst into tears.
+
+I seized hold of his thin, cold hand, but shifted my fingers to catch
+him by the coat collar, so as to exert more power over him, and hauled
+him along the deck, telling my companion to lay hold of the seaman and
+fetch him away smartly. We managed to escape the water, for the poor
+old gentleman bestirred himself very nimbly, and I helped him over
+the fore-chains, and when the boat rose, tumbled him into her without
+ceremony. I saw the daughter leap towards him and clasp him in her
+arms, but I was soon again scrambling on to the deck, having heard
+cries from my man, accompanied with several loud curses, mingled with
+dreadful yells.
+
+"He's bitten me, sir!" cried my companion, hauling himself away from
+the deck-house. "He's roaring mad."
+
+"It can't be helped," I answered. "We must get him out."
+
+He saw me pushing along the life-line, plucked up heart, and went with
+myself through a sousing sea to the door. I caught a glimpse of a white
+face glaring at me from the interior: in a second a figure shot out,
+fled with incredible speed towards the bow, and leaped into the sea
+just where our boat lay.
+
+"They'll pick him up," I exclaimed. "Stop a second;" and I entered the
+house and stooped over the figure of the man on the deck. I was not
+familiar with death, and yet I knew it was here. I cannot describe
+the signs in his face; but such as they were they told me the truth.
+I noticed a ring upon his finger, and that his clothes were good. His
+hair was black, and his features well-shaped, though his face had a
+half-convulsed expression, as if something frightful had appeared to
+him, and he had died of the sight of it.
+
+"This wreck must be his coffin," I said. "He is a corpse. We can do no
+more."
+
+We scrambled for the last time along the life-line and got into the
+fore-chains, but to our consternation saw the boat rowing away from
+the wreck. However, the fit of rage and terror that possessed me,
+lasted but a moment or two; for I now saw they were giving chase to
+the madman, who was swimming steadily away. Two of the men rowed, and
+the third hung over the bows, ready to grasp the miserable wretch.
+The _Grosvenor_ stood steady, about a mile off, with her mainyards
+backed; and just as the fellow over the boat's bows caught hold of the
+swimmer's hair, the ensign was run up on board the ship and dipped
+three times.
+
+"Bring him along!" I shouted. "They'll be off without us if we don't
+bear a hand."
+
+They nearly capsized the boat as they dragged the lunatic, streaming
+like a drowned rat, out of the water; and one of the sailors tumbled
+him over on his back, and knelt upon him, whilst he took some turns
+with the boat's painter round his body, arms, and legs. The boat then
+came alongside, and, watching our opportunity, we jumped into her and
+shoved off.
+
+I had now leisure to examine the persons whom we had saved.
+
+They--father and daughter as I judged them, by the girl's exclamation
+on the wreck--sat in the stern-sheets, their hands locked. The old man
+seemed nearly insensible, leaning backwards with his chin on his breast
+and his eyes partially closed. I feared he was dying, but could do no
+good until we reached the _Grosvenor_, as we had no spirits in the boat.
+
+The girl appeared to be about twenty years of age, very fair, her hair
+of a golden straw colour, which hung wet and streaky down her back and
+over her shoulders, though a portion of it was held by a comb. She was
+deadly pale and her lips blue, and in her fine eyes was such a look of
+mingled horror and rapture as she cast them around her, first glancing
+at me, then at the wreck, then at the _Grosvenor_, that the memory of
+it will last me to my death. Her dress, of some dark material, was
+soaked with salt water up to her hips, and she shivered and moaned
+incessantly, though the sun beat so warmly upon us that the thwarts
+were hot to the hand.
+
+The mad sailor lay at the bottom of the boat, looking straight into
+the sky. He was a horrid-looking object with his streaming hair, pasty
+features, and red beard; his naked shanks and feet protruding through
+his soaking, clinging trousers, which figured his shin-bones as though
+they clothed a skeleton. Now and again he would give himself a wild
+twirl and yelp out fiercely; but he was well-nigh spent with his swim,
+and on the whole was quiet enough.
+
+I said to the girl, "How long have you been in this dreadful position?"
+
+"Since yesterday morning," she answered in a choking voice painful to
+hear, and gulping after each word. "We have not had a drop of water to
+drink since the night before last. He is mad with thirst, for he drank
+the water on the deck," and she pointed to the man in the bottom of the
+boat.
+
+"My God!" I cried to the men; "do you hear her? They have not drunk
+water for two days! For the love of God, give way!"
+
+They bent their backs to the oars and the boat foamed over the long
+swell. The wind was astern and helped us. I did not speak again to the
+poor girl, for it was cruel to make her talk when the words lacerated
+her throat as though they were pieces of burning iron.
+
+After twenty minutes, which seemed as many hours, we reached the
+vessel. The crew pressing round the gangway cheered when they saw we
+had brought people from the wreck. Duckling and the skipper watched us
+grimly from the poop.
+
+"Now then, my lads," I cried, "up with this lady first. Some of you on
+deck get water ready, as these people are dying of thirst."
+
+In a few moments both the girl and the old man were handed over the
+gangway. I cut the boat's painter adrift from the ring-bolt so that we
+could ship the madman without loosening his bonds, and he was hoisted
+up like a bale of goods. Then four of us got out of the boat, leaving
+one to drop her under the davits and hook on the falls.
+
+At this moment a horrible scene took place.
+
+The old man, tottering on the arms of two seamen, was being led into
+the cuddy, followed by the girl, who walked unaided. The madman, in the
+grasp of the big sailor named Johnson, stood near the gangway, and as I
+scrambled on deck one of the men was holding a pannikin full of water
+to his face. The poor wretch was shrinking away from it, with his eyes
+half out of their sockets; but suddenly tearing his arm with a violent
+effort from the rope that bound him, he seized the pannikin _and
+bit clean through the tin_; after which, throwing back his head, he
+swallowed the whole draught, dashed the pannikin down, his face turned
+black, and he fell dead on the deck.
+
+The big sailor sprang aside with an oath, forced from him by his
+terror, and from every looker-on there broke a groan. They all shrank
+away and stood staring with blanched faces. Such a piteous sight as it
+was, lying doubled up, with the rope pinioning the miserable limbs, the
+teeth locked, and the right arm up-tossed!
+
+"Aft here and get the quarter-boat hoisted up!" shouted Duckling,
+advancing on the poop; and seeing the man dead on the deck, he added,
+"Get a tarpaulin and cover him up, and let him lie on the fore-hatch."
+
+"Shall I tell the steward to serve out grog to the men who went with
+me?" I asked him.
+
+He stared at me contemptuously, and walked away without answering.
+
+"You shall have your grog," said I, addressing one of them who stood
+near, "though it should be my own allowance." And thoroughly exhausted
+after my exertions, and wet through, I turned into my cabin to put on
+some dry clothes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Whilst I was in my cabin I heard the men hoisting up the quarter-boat,
+and this was followed by an order from Duckling to man the lee
+main-braces. The ship, hove too, was off her course; but when she
+filled, she brought the wreck right abreast of the port-hole in my
+cabin. I stood watching for some minutes with peculiar emotions,
+for the recollection of the dead body in the deck-house lent a most
+impressive significance to the mournful object which rolled from side
+to side. It comforted me, however, to reflect that it was impossible I
+could have left anything living on the hull, since nothing could have
+existed below the deck, and any one above must have been seen by me.
+
+The ship, now lying over, shut the wreck out, and I shifted my clothes
+as speedily as I could, being anxious to hear what Captain Coxon should
+say to me. I was also curious to see the old man and girl, and learn
+what treatment the captain was showing them. I remember it struck me,
+just at this time, that the girl was in a very awkward position; for
+here she was on board a vessel without any female to serve her for a
+companion and lend her clothes, which she would stand seriously in need
+of, as those she had on her were wringing wet. And even supposing she
+could make shift with these for a time, she would soon want a change of
+apparel, which she certainly would not get until we reached Valparaiso,
+unless the skipper put into some port and landed them. The memory of
+her refined and pretty face, with the amber air about it, and her wild,
+soft, piteous blue eyes, haunted me; and I tried to think what could
+be done to make her comfortable in this matter of dress if the captain
+refused to go out of his way to set them ashore.
+
+Thus thinking, I was pulling on a boot, when there came an awkward
+knock at the door of the cabin, and in stepped the carpenter, Stevens
+by name, holding in his hand a bar of iron with a collar at either end,
+and one collar fastened with a padlock. Close behind the carpenter came
+Duckling, who let the door close of itself, and who immediately said--
+
+"Captain Coxon's orders are to put you in irons. Carpenter, clap those
+belayers on his damned shins."
+
+I jumped off the chest on which I was seated, not with the intention of
+resisting, but of remonstrating; but Duckling, mistaking the action,
+drew a pistol out of his side-pocket, and presenting it at my head,
+said, right through his nose, which was the first time I had heard him
+so speak: "By the Etarnal! if you don't let the carpenter do his work,
+I'll shoot you dead--so mind!"
+
+"You're a ruffian and a bully!" said I; "but I'll keep my life if only
+to punish you and your master!"
+
+Saying which, I reseated myself, folded my arms resolutely, and
+suffered the carpenter to lock the irons on my ankles, keeping my eyes
+fixed on Duckling with an expression of the utmost scorn and dislike in
+them.
+
+"Now," said he, "you infernal mutinous hound! I reckon you'll not give
+us much trouble for the rest of the voyage."
+
+This injurious language was more than my temper could brook. Scarcely
+knowing what I did, I threw myself against him, caught his throat, and
+dashed him violently down upon the deck. The pistol exploded in his
+hand as he fell.
+
+"Carpenter," I cried furiously, "open that door!"
+
+The fellow obeyed me instantly, and walked out of the cabin. Duckling
+lay pretty well stunned upon the deck; but in a few moments he would
+have been up and at me, and, hampered as I was by the irons, he must
+have mastered me easily. I shambled over to where he lay, dragged him
+upright, and pitched him with a crash through the open door against
+the cuddy table. He struck it heavily and rolled under it, and I then
+slammed the door and sat down, feeling faint and quite exhausted of
+breath.
+
+The door had not been closed two minutes when it was partially opened,
+and a friendly hand (the boatswain's, as I afterwards learnt) placed
+a pannikin of rum-and-water on the deck, and a voice said, "They'll
+not let you be here long, sir." The door was then shut again; and very
+thankful for a refreshment of which I stood seriously in need, I got
+hold of the pannikin and swallowed the contents.
+
+I now tried to reflect upon my situation, but found it impossible to do
+so, as I could not guess what intentions the captain had against me and
+what would be the result of my conflict with Duckling. For some while I
+sat expecting to see the chief mate rush in on me; and, in anticipation
+of a struggle with a coward who would have me almost at his mercy, I
+laid hold of a sea-boot, very heavy, with an iron-shod heel, and held
+it ready to strike at the bully's head should he enter. However, in
+about a quarter of an hour's time I saw him through my cabin window
+pass along the main-deck, with a blue lump over his right eye, while
+the rest of his face shone with soap, which he must have used without
+stint to rid his features of the blood that had smeared them. Whether
+the report of the pistol had been heard or not I could not tell; but no
+notice appeared to be taken of it. I noticed a number of the crew just
+under the forecastle conversing in a very earnest manner, and sometimes
+looking towards my cabin.
+
+There was something very gross and brutal in this treatment to which
+I was subjected, and there was a contempt in it for me, suggested by
+the skipper sending Duckling to see me in irons, instead of logging
+me to my face and acting in a shipshape fashion in putting me under
+arrest, which galled me extremely. The very irons on my legs were not
+such as are ordinarily used on board ship, and looked as if they had
+been picked up cheap in some rag and slop shop in South America or
+in the West Indies, for I think I had seen such things in pictures
+of truculent negro slaves. I was in some measure supported by the
+reflection that the crew sympathized with me, and would not suffer me
+to be cruelly used; but the idea of a mutiny among them gave me no
+pleasure, for the skipper was sure to swear that I was the ringleader,
+and Duckling would of course back his statements; and my calling upon
+the men to help me to put off to the wreck, against the captain's
+orders, my going thither, and my confinement in irons, would all tell
+heavily against me in any court of inquiry; so that, as things were, I
+not only stood the chance of being professionally ruined, but of having
+to undergo a term of imprisonment ashore.
+
+These were no very agreeable reflections; and if some rather desperate
+thoughts came into my head whilst I sat pondering over my misfortunes,
+the reader will not greatly wonder.
+
+I was growing rather faint with hunger, for it was past my usual
+dinner-hour, and I had done enough work to account for a good appetite.
+
+The captain was eating his dinner in the cuddy; for I not only smelt
+the cooking, but heard his voice addressing the steward, who was,
+perhaps, the only man in the ship who showed any kind of liking for
+him. I tried to hear if the old man or the girl were with him, but
+caught no other voice. I honestly prayed that the captain would act
+humanely towards them; but I had my doubts, for he was certainly a
+cold-blooded, selfish rascal.
+
+By-and-by I heard Duckling's voice, showing that the captain had gone
+on deck. This man, either wanting the tact of his superior or hating me
+more bitterly (which I admit was fair, seeing how I had punished him),
+said in a loud voice to the steward--
+
+"What fodder is that mutinous dog yonder to have?"
+
+The steward spoke low and I did not hear him.
+
+"Serve the skunk right," continued the chief mate. "By glory, if there
+was only a pair of handcuffs on board they should be on him. How's this
+lump?"
+
+The steward replied, and Mr. Duckling continued--
+
+"I guess the fellow at the wheel grinned when he saw it. But I'll be
+raising bigger lumps than this on some of 'em before I'm done. This is
+the most skulking, snivelling, mutinous ship's crew that ever I sailed
+with--I'd rather work the vessel with four Lascars; and as to that rat
+in the hole there, if it wasn't for the colour of the bunting we sail
+under, I reckon we'd have made an ensign of him at the mizzen-peak
+some days ago, by the Lord, with the signal halliards round his neck,
+for he's born to be hanged; and I guess, though he knocked me down when
+I wasn't looking, I'm strong enough to hoist _him_ thirty feet, and let
+him drop with a run."
+
+All this was said in a loud voice for my edification, but I must own it
+did not frighten me very greatly. To speak the truth, I thought more
+of the old man and his daughter than myself; for if they should hear
+this bragging bully from their cabins, they would form very alarming
+conclusions as to the character of the persons who had rescued them,
+and scarcely know, indeed, whether we were not all cut-throats.
+
+Shortly after this, Duckling came out on to the main-deck, and
+observing me looking through the window, bawled at the top of his voice
+for the carpenter, who presently came, and Duckling, pointing to my
+window, gave him some instructions, which he went away to execute. A
+young ordinary seaman--an Irish lad named Driscoll--was coiling a rope
+over one of the belaying-pins around the mainmast. Duckling pointed up
+aloft, and his voice sounded, though I did not hear the order. The lad
+waited to coil the rest of the rope--a fathom or so--before obeying:
+whereupon Duckling hit him a blow on the back, slewed him round, caught
+him by the throat, and backed him savagely against the starboard
+bulwarks, roaring, in language quite audible to me now--"Up with you,
+you skulker! I'll teach you to wait when I give an order. Up with you,
+I say, or I'll pound you to pieces."
+
+At this moment the carpenter approached my window, provided with a
+hammer and a couple of planks, which he proceeded to nail upon the
+framework. Duckling watched him with a grin upon his ugly face, the
+lump over his eye not improving the expression, as you may believe.
+I was now in comparative darkness; for the port-hole admitted but
+little light, and, unlike the rest of the cuddy berths, my cabin had no
+bull's-eye.
+
+I reached the door with a great deal of trouble, for the iron-bar
+hampered my movements excessively, and found it locked outside; but by
+whom and when I did not know, for I had not heard the key turned. But
+I might depend that Duckling had done this with cat-like stealthiness,
+and that he probably had the key in his pocket.
+
+I was hungry enough to have felt grateful for a biscuit, and had half
+a mind to sing out to the steward to bring me something to eat, but
+reflected that my doing so might only provoke an insulting answer from
+the fellow. With some difficulty I pulled the mattress out of the cot
+and put it into the bunk, as my pinioned legs would not enable me to
+climb or spring, and laid down and presently fell asleep.
+
+I slept away the greater part of the afternoon; for when I awoke, the
+sky, as I saw it through the port-hole, was dark with the shadow of
+evening. A strong wind was blowing and the ship laying heavily over to
+it, by which I might know she was carrying a heap of canvas.
+
+I looked over the edge of the bunk, and saw on the deck near the door
+a tin dish, containing some common ship's biscuit and a can of cold
+water. I was so hungry that I jumped up eagerly to get the biscuit, by
+doing which I so tweaked my ankles with the irons, that the blood came
+from the broken skin. I made shift to reach the biscuit, which proved
+to be the ship's bread as served to the men, and ate greedily, being
+indeed famished; but speedily discovered the substantial grounds of
+complaint the sailors had against the ship's stores; for the biscuit
+was intolerably mouldy and rotten, and so full of weevils, that
+nothing but hunger could have induced me to swallow the abomination.
+I managed to devour a couple of these things, and drank some water;
+and then pulled out my pipe and began to smoke, caring little about
+the skipper's objection to this indulgence in the saloon, and heartily
+wishing he would come to the cabin that I might tell him what I thought
+of his behaviour.
+
+How long was this state of things going to last with me? Would the
+crew compel Captain Coxon to put into some near port where I should
+be handed over to the authorities, or would he proceed direct to
+Valparaiso? The probability of his touching anywhere was, in my
+opinion, now smaller than before; as the delays, and inquiry into my
+conduct and the complaints of the men, would seriously enlarge the
+period of the voyage. Nor could I imagine that the two persons we had
+rescued would prevail upon him to go out of his way to land them. As
+for myself, looking back on my actions, I did not believe that any
+court would judge me severely for obliging Coxon to send a boat to
+the wreck; for I had the evidence of the crew to prove that a human
+being had been seen signalling to us for help, before I ordered the
+ship to be hove to, and that therefore my determination to board the
+wreck had not been speculative, but truly justified by the spectacle
+of human distress. Still, such anticipations scarcely consoled me for
+the inconvenience I suffered in my feet being held in irons, and in my
+being locked up in a gloomy cabin, where such fare as I had already
+eaten would probably be the food I should get until the voyage out was
+ended.
+
+As the evening advanced the wind freshened, and I heard the captain
+giving orders just over my head, and the hands shortening sail. The
+skipper was again straining the ship heavily: the creaking and groaning
+in the cuddy was incessant: and every now and again I heard the boom of
+a sea against the vessel's side, and the sousing rush of water on deck.
+But after the men had been at work some time, the vessel laboured less
+and got upon a more even keel.
+
+Two bells (nine o'clock) had been struck, when I was suddenly attracted
+by a sound of hammering upon the dead-light in my cabin. I turned my
+head hastily; but as it was not only dark inside, but dark without, I
+could discern nothing, and concluded that the noise had been made on
+the deck overhead.
+
+After an interval of a minute the hammering was repeated, and now it
+was impossible for me to doubt that it was caused by something hard,
+such as the handle of a knife being struck upon the thick glass of
+the port-hole. I was greatly astonished; but remembering that the
+main-chains extended away from this port-hole, I easily concluded that
+some one had got down into them and was knocking to draw my attention.
+
+I hoisted my legs out of the bunk with very great difficulty, and
+having got my feet upon the deck, drew myself to the port-hole, but
+with much trouble, it being to windward, and the deck sloping to a
+considerable angle. Not a glimmer of light penetrated my cabin from the
+cuddy: and whether the sky outside was clear or not, I only know that
+the prospect seen through the port-hole, buried in the thickness of the
+ship's wall, was pitch dark.
+
+I untwisted the screw that kept the dead-light closed, and it blew
+open, and a rush of wind, concentrated by the narrowness of the
+aperture through which it penetrated, blew damp with spray upon my face.
+
+Fearful of my voice being heard in the cuddy--for this was the hour
+when the spirits were put upon the table, and it was quite likely that
+Coxon or Duckling might be seated within, drinking alone--I muffled my
+voice between my hands and asked who was there?
+
+The fellow jammed his face so effectually into the port-hole as to
+exclude the wind, so that the whisper in which he spoke was quite
+distinct.
+
+"Me--Stevens, the carpenter. I've come from the crew. But you're to
+take your solemn oath you'll not split upon us if I tell you what's
+goin' to happen?"
+
+"I am not in a position to split," I replied. "But I can make no
+promises until I know your intentions."
+
+The man was a long time silent. Several times he withdrew his face, as
+I knew (for I could not see him) by the rush of wind that came in, to
+shake himself free of the spray that broke over him.
+
+"It's just this," he said, bunging up the port-hole again. "We'd rather
+take a twelvemonth imprisonment ashore, in the worst jail in England,
+than work this wessel on the rotten food we're obliged to eat. What we
+want to know is, will you take charge o' the ship and carry her where
+we tells yer, if we give you command?"
+
+I was too much startled by this question to reply at once. Influenced
+by the long term of confinement before me, if Captain Coxon remained
+in control, by my bitter dislike of him and his bully factotum, by
+the longing to be free, and the hundred excuses I could frame for
+co-operating with the crew, my first impulse was to say yes. But there
+came quickly considerations of the danger of mutiny on board ship, of
+the sure excesses of men made reckless by liberty and freed from the
+discipline which, though their passions might protest against it, their
+still stronger instincts admitted and obeyed.
+
+"Give us your answer," said the man. "If the chief mate looks over,
+he'll see me."
+
+"I cannot consent," I replied. "I am as sorry for the crew as I am for
+myself. But things are better as they are."
+
+"By----!" exclaimed the man in a violent, hoarse whisper, "we don't
+mean to let 'em be as they are. We've put up with a bit too much as it
+is. We'll find a way of making you consent--see to that! And if you
+peach on us we're still too strong for you--so mind your life!"
+
+Saying which he withdrew his head; and after waiting a short time to
+see if he remained, I closed the port, and shuffled into my bunk again.
+
+I tried to think how I should act.
+
+If I acquainted the captain with the carpenter's disclosure the men
+would probably murder me. And though they withheld from bloodshed, my
+putting the captain on his guard would not save the ship if the men
+were determined to seize her, because he could not count on more than
+two men to side with him, and the crew would overpower them immediately.
+
+However, I will not seem more virtuous and upright than I was; and
+I may therefore say, that after giving this matter some half-hour's
+thinking, I found that it would suit my purpose better if the crew
+mutinied than if the captain continued in charge, because it might
+open large opportunities for my future, and relieve me from the
+disgraceful position in which I was placed by the malice and injustice
+of my two superiors. The one thing I heartily prayed for was that
+murder might not be done; but I did not anticipate great violence, as I
+imagined that the crew had no other object in rebelling than to compel
+the captain to put into the nearest port to exchange the stores.
+
+The night wore away very slowly, and I counted every bell that was
+struck. The wind decreased at midnight, and I heard Duckling go into
+the captain's cabin and rouse him up, the captain evidently having
+undertaken my duties. Duckling reported the weather during his watch,
+and said, "The wind is dropping, but it looks dirty to the south'ard.
+If we lose the breeze we may get it fresh from t'other quarter, and
+she can't hurt under easy sail until we see what's going to do."
+
+They then went on deck together, and in about ten minutes' time
+Duckling returned and went into his cabin, closing the door noisily.
+
+A little after one o'clock I fell into a dose, but was shortly after
+awakened by hearing the growl of voices close against my cabin, my
+apprehensions making my hearing very sensitive, even in sleep.
+
+In a few moments the voices of the men were silenced, and I then heard
+the tread of footsteps in the cuddy going aft, and some one as he
+passed tried the handle of my door.
+
+Another long interval of silence followed; and as I did not hear
+the men who had entered the cuddy return, I wondered where they had
+stationed themselves, and what they were doing. As to myself, the irons
+on my legs made me quite helpless.
+
+The time that now passed seemed an eternity, and I was beginning to
+wonder whether the voices I had heard might not have been Coxon's and
+the steward's--all was so quiet--when a step sounded overhead, and
+the captain's voice rang out, "Lay aft, some hands, and brail up the
+spanker!"
+
+Instantly several men ran up the starboard poop-ladder, proving that
+they must have been stationed close against my cabin, and their heavy
+feet clattered along the deck, and I heard their voices singing. Scarce
+were their voices hushed when a shrill whistle, like a sharp human
+squeal, was raised forwards, and immediately there was a sharp twirl
+and scuffle of feet on the deck, followed by a groan and a fall. At the
+same moment a door was forced open in the cuddy, and, as I might judge
+by what followed, a body of men tumbled into the chief mate's cabin. A
+growling and yelping of fierce human voices followed. "Haul him out of
+it by the hair!"--"You blackguard! you'll show fight, will yer! Take
+that for yourself!"--"Over the eyes next time, Bill! Let me get at
+the----!"
+
+But, as I imagined, the muscular, infuriate chief mate would not fall
+an easy prey, fighting as he deemed for his life. I heard the thump of
+bodies swung against the panelling, fierce execrations, the smash of
+crockery, and the heavy breathing of men engaged in deadly conflict.
+
+It was brief enough in reality, though Duckling seemed to find them
+work for a good while.
+
+"Don't kill him now! Wait till dere's plenty ob light!" howled a voice,
+which I knew to be the cook's. And then they came along the cuddy,
+dragging the body which they had either killed or knocked insensible
+after them, and got upon the main-deck.
+
+"Poop, ahoy!" shouted one of them. "What cheer up there, mates?"
+
+"Right as a trivet!--ready to sling astern!" came the answer directly
+over my head, followed by some laughter.
+
+As I lay holding my breath, scarcely knowing what was next to befall,
+the handle of my door was tried, the door pushed, then shaken
+passionately, after which a voice, in tones which might have emanated
+from a ghost, exclaimed--
+
+"Mr. Royle, they have killed the captain and Mr. Duckling! For God
+Almighty's sake, ask them to spare my life! They will listen to you,
+sir! For God's sake, save me!"
+
+"Who are you?" I answered.
+
+"The steward, sir."
+
+But as he said this one of the men on the quarter-deck shouted,
+"Where's the steward? He's as bad as the others! He's the one what
+swore the pork was sweet!"
+
+And then I heard the steward steal swiftly away from my cabin door and
+some men come into the cuddy. They would doubtless have hunted him down
+there and then, but one of them unconsciously diverted the thoughts of
+the others by exclaiming--
+
+"There's the second mate in there. Let's have him out of it."
+
+My cabin door was again tried, and a heavy kick administered.
+
+"It's locked, can't you see?" said one of the men.
+
+As it opened into the cuddy it was not to be forced, so one of them
+exclaimed that he would fetch a mallet and a calking-iron, with which
+he returned in less than a couple of minutes, and presently the lock
+was smashed to pieces, and the door fell open.
+
+Both swinging-lamps were alight in the cuddy, and one, being nearly
+opposite my cabin, streamed fairly into it. I was seated erect in my
+bunk when the men entered, and I immediately exclaimed, pointing to the
+irons, "I am glad you have thought of me. Knock those things off, will
+you?"
+
+I believe there was something in the cool way in which I pronounced
+these words that as fully persuaded them that I was intent upon the
+mutiny as any action I could have committed.
+
+"We'll not take long to do that for you," cried the fellow who held the
+mallet (a formidable weapon, by the way, in such hands!). "Get upon
+the deck, and I'll swaller this iron if you aren't able to dance a
+breakdown in a jiffy!"
+
+I dropped out of the bunk, and with two blows the man cut off the
+staple, and I kicked the irons off.
+
+"Now, my lads," said I, beginning to play the part I had made up my
+mind to act whilst listening to the onslaught on the captain and
+Duckling; "what have you done?"
+
+The fellow who had knocked off the irons, and now answered me, was
+named Cornish, a man in my own watch.
+
+"The ship's ourn--that's what we've done," he said.
+
+"The skipper's dead as a nail up there, I doubt," exclaimed another,
+indicating the poop with a movement of the head; "and if you'll step on
+to the main-deck you'll see how we've handled Mister Duckling!"
+
+"And what do _you_ mean to do?" exclaimed a man, one of the four who
+had accompanied me to the wreck. "_We_'re masters now, I suppose you
+know, and so I hope you aren't agin us."
+
+At this moment the carpenter, followed by a few others, came shoving
+into the cuddy.
+
+"Oh, there he is!" he cried.
+
+He grasped me by the arm and led me out of the cabin, and bidding me
+stand at the end of the table, with my face looking aft, ran to the
+door, and bawled at the top of his voice, "Into the cuddy, all hands!"
+
+Those who were on the poop came scuffling along, dragging something
+with them, and presently rose a cry of "one--two--three!" and there
+was a soft thud upon the main-deck--the body of the captain, in fact,
+pitched off the poop--and then the men came running in and stood in a
+crowd on either side the table.
+
+This was a scene I am not likely ever to forget, nor the feelings
+excited in me by it.
+
+The men were variously dressed, some in yellow sou'westers, some
+in tight-fitting caps, in coarse shirts, in suits of oil-skin, in
+liberally patched monkey-jackets. Some of them, with black beards and
+moustachios and burnt complexions, looked swarthy and sinister enough
+in the lamplight; some were pale with the devilish spirit that had
+been aroused in them; every face, not excepting the youngest of the
+ordinary seamen, wore a passionate, reckless, malignant look. They ran
+their eyes over the cuddy as strangers would, and one of them took a
+glass off a swinging tray, and held it high, saying grimly, "By the
+Lord! we'll have something fit to swaller now! No more starvation and
+stinking water!"
+
+I noticed the boatswain--named Ferroll--the only quiet face in the
+crowd. He met my eye, and instantly looked down.
+
+"Now, Mr. Royle," said the carpenter, "we're all ekals here, with a
+fust-rate execootioner among us (pointing to the big sailor, Johnson),
+as knows, when he's axed, how to choke off indiwiduals as don't make
+theirselves sootable to our feelin's. What we're all here collected for
+to discover, is this--are you with us, or agin us?"
+
+"With you," I replied, "in everything but murder."
+
+Some of them growled, and the carpenter exclaimed hastily--
+
+"We don't know what you call murder. We aren't used to them sort o'
+expressions. What's done has happened, ain't it? And I _have_ heerd
+tell of accidents, which is the properest word to conwey our thoughts."
+
+He nodded at me significantly.
+
+"Look here," said I. "Just a plain word with you before I am asked any
+more questions. There's not a man among you who doesn't know that I
+have been warm on your side ever since I learnt what kind of provisions
+you were obliged to eat. I have had words with the captain about your
+stores, and it is as much because of my interference in that matter as
+because of my determination not to let a woman die upon a miserable
+wreck, that he clapped me in irons. I don't know what you mean to do
+with me, but I'll not say I don't care. I do care. I value my life,
+and in the hope of saving it, I'll tell you this, and it's God's
+truth--that if you take my life you'll be killing a man who has been
+your friend at heart, who has sympathized with you in your privations,
+who has never to his knowledge spoken harshly to you, when he had the
+power to do so, and who, had he commanded this vessel, would have
+shifted your provisions long ago."
+
+So saying, I folded my arms and gazed fixedly at the carpenter.
+
+They listened to me in silence, and when I had done broke into various
+exclamations.
+
+"We know all that."
+
+"We don't owe _you_ no grudge."
+
+"We don't want your life. Just show us what to do--that's what it is."
+
+I appeared to pay no attention to their remarks, but kept my eyes
+resolutely bent on Stevens, the carpenter, that they might see I
+accepted him as their mouthpiece, and would deal only with him.
+
+"Well," he began, "all what you say is quite correct, and we've no
+fault to find with you. What I says to you this evenin' through the
+port-hole I says now--will you navigate this here wessel for us to the
+part as we've agreed on? and if you'll do that you can choose officers
+out of us, and we'll do your bidding as though you was lawful skipper,
+and trust to you. But I say now, and I says it before all hands here,
+that if you take us where we don't want to go, or put us in the way of
+any man-o'-war, or try in any manner to bring us to book for this here
+job, so help me, Mr. Royle, and that's your name, as mine is William
+Stevens, and I say it before all hands here, we'll sling you overboard
+as sartin as there's hair growin' on your head--we will; we'll murder
+you out an' out. All my mates is a followin' of me--so you'll please
+mind that!"
+
+"I hear you," I replied, "and will do your bidding, but on this
+condition--that having killed the captain, you will swear to me that no
+more lives shall be sacrificed."
+
+"By Gor, no!" shouted the cook. "Don't swear dat! Wait till by-um-by.
+
+"Be advised by me!" I cried, seizing the fellow's frightful meaning,
+and dreading the hideous scene it portended. "We have an old man and a
+young girl on board. Are they safe?"
+
+"Yes," answered several voices; and the cook jabbered, "Yes, yes!"
+with horrid contortions of the face, under the impression that I had
+mistaken his interruption.
+
+"We have the steward and the chief mate?"
+
+"Dat's dey! dat's dey!" screamed the cook. "No mercy upon 'em! Hab no
+mercy upon us! Him strike me on de jaw and kick me! T'oder one poison
+us! No mercy!" he howled, and several joined in the howl.
+
+"Look here! I am a single man against many," I said; "but I am not
+afraid to speak out--because I am an Englishman speaking to Englishmen,
+with one bloodthirsty yellow savage among you!" There was a shout of
+laughter. "If you wish it, I will go on my knees to you and implore you
+not to stain your hands with these men's blood. You have them in your
+power--you cannot better your position by killing them--be merciful!
+Mates, how would you kill them?--in cold blood? Is there an Englishman
+among you who would slaughter a defenceless man? who would stand by and
+see a defenceless man slaughtered? There is an Almighty God above you,
+and He is the God of vengeance! Hear me!"
+
+"We'll let the steward go!" cried a voice; "but we want our revenge
+upon Duckling, and we'll have it. Damn your sermons!"
+
+And once again the ominous growling of angry men muttering altogether
+arose; in the midst of which the fellow who was steering left the wheel
+to sing out through the skylight--
+
+"It's as black as thunder to leeward. Better stand by, or the ship 'll
+be aback!"
+
+"Now what am I to do?" I exclaimed.
+
+"We give you command. Out with your orders--we'll obey 'em," came the
+answer.
+
+In a few moments I was on the poop. By the first glance I threw upwards
+I saw that the ship was already aback.
+
+"Port your helm--hard a port!" I shouted. "Let go the port-braces fore
+and aft! Round with the yards smartly!"
+
+Fortunately not only was the first coming of the wind light, but the
+canvas on the ship was comparatively small. The mainsail, cross-jack,
+the three royals, two top-gallant sails, spanker, flying and outer
+jibs were furled, and there was a single reef in the fore and mizzen
+topsails. The yards swung easily and the sails filled, and not knowing
+what course to steer, I braced the yards up sharp and kept her close.
+
+The sky to the south looked threatening, and the night was very dark.
+I ran below to look at the glass, and found a slight fall, but nothing
+to speak of. This being so, I thought we might hold on with the
+topsails as they were for the present, and ordered the top-gallant
+sail to be furled. The men worked with great alacrity, singing out
+lustily; indeed, it was difficult for me, standing on the poop and
+giving orders, to realize the experiences of the last hour: and yet I
+might know, by the strange trembling and inward and painful feeling of
+faintness which from time to time seized me, that both my moral and
+physical being had received a terrible shock, and that I should feel
+the reality more keenly when my excitement was abated and I should have
+no other occupation than to think.
+
+The only food I had taken all day was the two ship's biscuits, and
+feeling the need of some substantial refreshment to relieve me of the
+sensation of faintness, I left the poop to seek the carpenter, in order
+to request him to keep watch whilst I went below.
+
+When on the quarter-deck, and looking towards the cuddy, I perceived
+two figures huddled together just outside the cuddy door. There was
+plenty of light here from the lamps inside, and I at once saw that the
+two bodies were those of Duckling and Coxon.
+
+I stepped up to them. Coxon lay on his back with his face exposed,
+and Duckling was right across him, breast downwards, his head in the
+corner and his feet towards me. There was no blood on either of them.
+Coxon had evidently been struck over the head from behind, and killed
+instantly; his features were composed, and his grey hairs made him look
+a reverend object in death.
+
+Some men on the main-deck watched me looking at the bodies, and when
+they saw me take Duckling by the arm and turn him on his back, one
+of them called: "That's right; keep the beggar alive! he's cookee's
+portion, he is!"
+
+These exclamations attracted the attention of the carpenter, who came
+aft immediately and found me stooping over Duckling.
+
+"He's dead, I reckon," he said.
+
+"Dead, or next door to it," I replied. "Better for him if he is dead.
+The captain's a corpse, killed quickly enough, by the look of him," I
+continued, gazing at the white, still face at my feet. "You had better
+get him carried forward and covered up. Where's the body of the sailor
+I brought on board?"
+
+"Why, pitched overboard like a dead rat, by orders of this Christian,"
+he answered, giving the captain's body a kick. "He had a good deal of
+feelin', this pious gentleman. Why do you want him covered up? Let him
+go overboard now, won't 'ee? Hi, mates!" he called to the men who were
+looking on. "Here's another witness agin us for the Day o' Judgment!
+Heave him into the sea, my hearties! We don't want to give him no
+excuse to soften the truth for our sakes when he's called upon to spin
+his yarn!"
+
+The men flocked round the bodies, and whilst three of them caught up
+the corpse of the skipper as if it had been a coil of rope, others of
+them began to handle Duckling.
+
+"Him too?" asked one.
+
+"What do you say, Mr. Royle?" demanded the carpenter.
+
+"It ain't Mr. Royle's consarn--it's cookee's!" cried one of the men.
+And he began to bawl for "cookee!"
+
+Meantime the fellows who held the captain's body, not relishing their
+burden, went to leeward; and two of them taking the shoulders and one
+the feet, they began to swing him, and at a given word, shot him over
+the bulwarks. They then came back quite unconcernedly, one of them
+observing that the devil ought to be very much obliged to them for
+their handsome present.
+
+The cook now approached, walked aft by some men who held him by the
+arms. They were laughing uproariously, which was explained when I saw
+that the cook was drunk.
+
+"Here's your friend, Mr. Cookee," said Stevens, stirring Duckling with
+the toe of his boot. "He's waitin' for you to know wot's to become of
+him."
+
+"Him a berry good genelman," returned the cook, pulling off his cap
+with drunken gravity, and making a reeling bow to the body. "Me love
+dis genelman like my own son. Nebber knew tenderer-hearted man. Him
+gib me a nice blow here," holding his clenched fist to his jaw, "and
+anoder one here," clapping his hand to his back. Then, after a pause,
+he kicked the dying or dead man savagely in the head, yelling in a
+hideous falsetto, "Oh, I'll skin um alive! Oh, I'll pull his eyes out
+and make um swaller dem! He kick an' strike honest English cook! Oh,
+my golly! I'll cut off his foot! Gib me a knife, sar," looking around
+him with a wandering, gleaming eye. "Gib me a knife, I say, an' you see
+what I do!"
+
+One of the ruffians actually gave him a knife.
+
+I grasped the carpenter's arm.
+
+"Mr. Stevens," I exclaimed in his ear, "you'll not allow this! For
+God's sake, don't let this drunken cannibal disgrace our manhood by
+such brutal deeds before us! Living or dead, better fling the body
+overboard! Don't let him be tortured if living; and if dead, is not
+your revenge complete?"
+
+The carpenter made no answer, and sick with horror and disgust I was
+turning away, feeling powerless to deal with these wretches, when, the
+cook already kneeling and baring his arm for I know not what bloody
+work, Stevens sprang forward and fetched him such a thump under the
+chin, that he rolled head over heels into the lee-scuppers.
+
+The men roared with laughter.
+
+"Now then, overboard with this thing!" the carpenter shouted; "and if
+cookee wants more wengeance, fling him overboard arter him!"
+
+They seized Duckling as they had seized Coxon, and slung him overboard,
+just as they had slung the other. Some of them ran to the cook, and
+it was impossible to judge whether they were in earnest or not when
+they shrieked out, "Overboard with him, too! We can't separate the
+friends!" The cook at all events believed they meant no joke, for
+uttering a prolonged yell of terror, he wriggled with incredible
+activity out of their hands, and rushed forward like a steam-engine.
+They did not offer to pursue him; and, ill with these scenes of horror,
+I called to the carpenter and asked him to step on the poop whilst I
+went into the cuddy.
+
+"What to do there?" he inquired suspiciously.
+
+"To get something to eat. I have had nothing all day but two of the
+ship's bad biscuits."
+
+"Right," he said. "But, before I go, I'll tell you what's agreed among
+us. You're to take charge, and sarve with me and the bo'sun, turn and
+turn about on deck. That's agreeable, ain't it?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+"You're to do all the piloting of the ship, and navigate us to where
+the ship's company agrees upon."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"We three 'll live aft here, and the ship's company forrards; but all
+the ship's stores 'll be smothered, and the cuddy provisions sprung,
+d'ye see? likewise the grog and whatsomever there may be proper to eat
+and drink. We're all to be ekals, and fare and fare alike, though the
+crew 'll obey orders as usual. You're to have the skipper's berth, and
+I'll take yourn; and the bo'sun he'll take Duckling's. That we've all
+agreed on afore we went to work, and so I thought I'd let you know."
+
+"Well, Mr. Stevens," I replied, "as I told you just now, I'll do your
+bidding. I'll take the ship to the place you may name; and as I shan't
+play you false (though I have no notion of your intentions), so I hope
+you won't play me false. I have begged for the steward's life, and you
+have promised to spare him. And how are the two persons we saved to be
+treated?"
+
+"They're to live along with us here. All that's settled, I told yer.
+But I'm not so sure about the steward. I never made no promise about
+sparing of him."
+
+"Look here!" I exclaimed sternly. "I am capable of taking this ship
+to any port you choose to name. There is not another man on board who
+could do this. I can keep you out of the track of ships, and help you
+in a number of ways to save your necks. Do you understand me? But I
+tell you--on my oath--if you murder the steward, if any further act of
+violence is committed on board this ship, I'll throw up my charge, and
+you may do your worst. These are my terms, easier to you than to me.
+What is your answer?"
+
+He reflected a moment and replied, "I'll talk to my mates about it."
+
+"Do so," I said. "Call them aft now. But you had better get on deck, as
+the ship wants watching. Talk to them on the poop."
+
+He obeyed me literally, calling for the hands to lay aft, and I was
+left alone.
+
+I went into the steward's pantry, where I found some cold meat and
+biscuit and a bottle of sherry. These things I carried to the aftermost
+end of the table. Somehow I did not feel greatly concerned about the
+debate going on overhead, as I knew the men could not do without me;
+nor did I believe the general feeling against the steward sufficiently
+strong to make them willing to sacrifice my services to their
+revengeful passions.
+
+I fell to the meat and wine as greedily as a starving man, and was
+eating very heartily, when I felt a light touch on my arm. I turned
+hastily and confronted the girl whom I had brought away from the
+wreck. Her hair hung loose over her shoulders, and she was as pale
+as marble. But her blue eyes were very brilliant, and fired with a
+resolved and brave expression, and I thought her beautiful as she stood
+before me in the lamplight with her hair shining about her face.
+
+"Are you Mr. Royle?" she asked, in a low but most clear and sweet voice.
+
+"I am," I replied, rising.
+
+She took my hand and kissed it.
+
+"You have saved my father's life and mine, and I have prayed God to
+bless you for your noble courage. I have had no opportunity to thank
+you before. They would not let me see you. The captain said you had
+mutinied and were in irons. My father wishes to thank you--his heart is
+so full that he cannot rest--but he is too weak to move. Will you come
+and see him?"
+
+She made a movement towards the cabin next the pantry.
+
+"Not now," I said. "You should be asleep, resting after your terrible
+trials."
+
+"How could I sleep?" she exclaimed with a shudder. "I have heard all
+that has been said. I heard them killing the man in that cabin there."
+
+She clasped her hands convulsively.
+
+"Frightful things have happened," I said, speaking quickly, for I every
+moment expected the men to come running down the companion-ladder, near
+which we were conversing; "but the worst has passed. Did not you hear
+them answer me that you and your father were safe? Go, I beg you, to
+your cabin and sleep if you can, and be sure that no harm shall befall
+you whilst I remain in this ship. I have a very difficult part before
+me, and wish to reflect upon my position. And the sense that _your_
+security will depend upon my actions," I added, moved by her beauty
+and the memory of the fate I had rescued her from, "will make me doubly
+vigilant."
+
+And as she had kissed my hand on meeting me, so now I raised hers to my
+lips; and obedient to my instructions, she entered her cabin and closed
+the door.
+
+I stood for some time engrossed, to the exclusion of all other
+thoughts, by the picture impressed on my mind by the girl's sweet face.
+It inspired a new kind of energy in me. Whatever qualms my conscience
+may have suffered from my undertaking to navigate the ship for the
+satisfaction and safety of a pack of ruffians, merely because I stood
+in fear of my life, were annihilated by the sight of this girl. The
+profound necessity enjoined upon me to protect her from the dangers
+that would inevitably come upon her, should my life be taken, so
+violently affected me as I stood thinking of her, that my cowardly
+acquiescence in the basest proposals which the crew could submit, would
+have been tolerable to my conscience for her lonely and helpless sake.
+
+The voices of the men overhead, talking in excited tones, awoke me to a
+sense of my situation. I took another draught of wine, and entered the
+captain's cabin, wishing to inspect the log-book that I might ascertain
+the ship's position at noon on the preceding day.
+
+The shadow of the mizzen-mast fell right upon the interior as I opened
+the cabin door. I looked about me for a lamp, but was suddenly scared
+by the spectacle of a man crawling on his hands and knees out of a
+corner.
+
+"Oh, my God!" cried a melancholy voice. "Am I to be killed! Will they
+murder me, sir? Oh, sir, it is in your power to save me. They'll obey
+you. I have a wife and child in England, sir. I am a miserable sinner,
+and not fit to die."
+
+And the wretched creature burst into tears, and crawled close to my
+legs, and twined his arms around them.
+
+"Go back into your corner," I said. "Don't let them hear or see you. I
+can make no promises, but will do my best to save your life. Back with
+you now! Be a man, for God's sake! Your whining will only amuse them.
+Be resolute; and should you have to face them, meet them bravely."
+
+He went crawling back to his corner, and I seeing the log-book open on
+the table, carried it under the lamp in the cuddy. There I read off the
+sights of the previous day, replaced the book, and mounted to the poop.
+
+The dawn was breaking in the east, and the sky heavy, though something
+of its threatening character had left it. There was a smart sea on,
+but the ship lay pretty steady, owing to the wind having freshened
+enough to keep the vessel well over. We were making no headway to speak
+of, the yards being against the masts, and but little canvas set. The
+fellow steering lounged at the wheel, one arm through the spokes, and
+his left leg across his right shin, letting all hands know by this free
+and easy attitude that we were all equals now, and that he was only
+there to oblige. He was watching the men assembled round the forward
+saloon skylight, and now and then called out to them.
+
+There were eight or nine of the crew there and on the top of the
+skylight, and in the centre of the throng were squatted the boatswain
+and the carpenter.
+
+Many of them were smoking, and some of them laid down the law with
+their forefingers upon the palms of their hands. I saw no signs of the
+cook, and hoped that the fright the evil-minded scoundrel had undergone
+would keep him pretty quiet for a time.
+
+Not thinking it politic to join the men until they summoned me, I
+walked to the compass to see how the ship's head lay; whereupon the
+man steering, out of a habit of respect too strong for him to control,
+drew himself erect, and looked at the sails, and then at the card, as a
+man intent upon his work. I made no observation to him, and swept the
+horizon through my hands, which I hollowed to collect the pale light,
+but could discover nothing save the rugged outline of waves.
+
+Just then the men saw me, and both the carpenter and the boatswain
+scrambled off the skylight, and they all came towards me.
+
+A tremor ran through me which I could not control, but strength
+was given me to suppress all outward manifestation of emotion, and
+I awaited their approach with a forced tranquillity which, as I
+afterwards heard, gave the more intelligent and better disposed among
+them a good opinion of me.
+
+The carpenter said, "Most of us are for leaving the steward alone; but
+there's three of us as says that he showed hisself so spiteful in the
+way he used to sarve out the rotten stores, and swore to such a lie
+when he said the pork was sweet, before it went into the coppers, that
+they're for havin' some kind o' rewenge."
+
+"None of you want his life, do you?"
+
+"Damn his life!" came a growl. "Who'd take what ain't of no use even to
+him as owns it?"
+
+"Which of you wants revenge?" I asked.
+
+There was a pause; and Fish, projecting his extraordinary head, said,
+"Well, I'm one as dew."
+
+"Suppose," said I, "you were to see this wretched creature grovelling
+on his hands and knees, weeping and moaning like a woman, licking the
+deck in his agony of fear, and already half dead with terror. Would not
+such a miserable sight satisfy your thirst for revenge? What punishment
+short of death that you can inflict would make him suffer more dreadful
+tortures than his fear has already caused him? Fish, be a man, and
+leave this hunted wretch alone."
+
+He muttered something under his breath, though looking, I was glad to
+see, rather shame-faced, and the boatswain said--
+
+"There's something more, Mr. Royle. He knows where to lay his hands on
+the cuddy provisions, and if we knock him on the head we shan't be able
+to find half that'll be wanted. What I woted was that we should make
+him wait upon us, and let him have nothen but the ship's stores to eat,
+whilst he sarves us with the cuddy's."
+
+"Won't that do?" I exclaimed, addressing the others, at the same time
+receiving a glance from the boatswain which showed me that I should
+have an ally in him: as indeed I had expected; for this was the only
+one of the forecastle hands who had come from London with us, and I was
+pretty sure he had joined in the mutiny merely to save his life.
+
+"Oh yes, that'll do!" some of them answered impatiently; and one
+said, "Wot's the use of jawing about the steward? We want to talk of
+ourselves. Where's the ship bound to? _I_ don't want to be hanged when
+I get ashore."
+
+This sensible observation was delivered by Johnson.
+
+"Now then, if you like, we'll come to that," said I, immensely
+relieved; for I not only knew that the steward's life was safe,
+but that in their present temper no further act of violence would
+be perpetrated. "Mr. Stevens, you told me that all your plans were
+prepared. Am I to have your confidence?"
+
+"Sartinly," replied the fellow, looking around upon the assembled faces
+fast growing distinguishable in the gathering light. "You're a scholard
+and can sail the ship for us, and we look to you to get us out o' this
+mess, for we've treated you well and made you skipper."
+
+"Go ahead," I exclaimed, seating myself in a nonchalant way on one of
+the gratings abaft the wheel.
+
+"This here mutiny," began the carpenter, after casting about in his
+mind for words, "is all along o' bad treatment. Had the capten acted
+fair and proper, _we_'d ha' acted fair an' proper. He as good as swore
+that he'd put in for fresh stores, but never altered the ship's course,
+and we wouldn't starve no longer. So we up and did the business. But we
+never meant to kill him. We was afraid he'd ha' had pistols on him, and
+so some of us knocked him down unaweers, and knocked too hard, that was
+all. And t'other one he struggled so, instead of givin' up when he saw
+we was too many for ten o' the likes of him, that he died of his own
+doin'; and that's a fact, mates, ain't it?"
+
+"Ay," responded a gruff voice. "He'd ha' gouged my eye out. He had his
+thumb in my mouth workin' away as if he thought my tooth was my eye. He
+drawed blood with his thumb, and I had to choke it out of my mouth, or
+he'd ha' tore my tongue out!"
+
+So saying, he expectorated violently.
+
+"To come back to wot I was saying," resumed the carpenter; "it's this.
+When me and my mates made up our minds to squench the skipper and his
+bully mate for their wrongful dealings with us, one says that our plan
+was to run the ship to the North Ameriky shore somewheeres. One says,
+Floridy way; and another, he says round into the Gulf o' Mexico, within
+reach o' New Orleans; and another, he says, 'Let's get south, mates,
+upon the coast of Africa;' and another, he says he's for making the
+ice, right away north, up near Baffin Land. But none was agreeable to
+that. We aren't resolved yet, but we're most all for Ameriky, because
+it's a big place, pretty nigh big enough to hide in."
+
+Some of the men laughed.
+
+"And so," continued the carpenter, "our plan is this: as easy as
+sayin' your prayers. We'll draw lots and choose upon the coast for
+you to run us to; and when we're a day's sail of them parts, leavin'
+you to tell us and to keep us out o' the way of ships, d'ye mind, Mr.
+Royle?"--with stern significance: I nodded--"some of us gets into the
+long-boat and some into the quarter-boats, and we pulls for the shore.
+And wot we do and says when we gets ashore needn't matter, eh, mates?
+We're shipwrecked mariners, destitoot and forlorn, and every man's for
+hisself. And so that's our plan."
+
+"Yes, that's our plan," said one: "but it ain't all. You're not putting
+everything to Mr. Royle, mate."
+
+"Look here, Bill," answered the carpenter savagely. "Either I'm to
+manage this here business or I'm not. If _you_'re for carryin' of it
+on, good and well--say the word, and then we'll know the time o' day.
+But either it must be you or it must be I--there ain't room for two
+woices in one mouth."
+
+"_I_'ve got nothen to say," rejoined the man addressed as "Bill,"
+extending his arms and turning his back; "only I thought as you might
+ha' forgot."
+
+What the carpenter was holding back I could not guess; but I exhibited
+no curiosity. Neither did I tell them that our course to the "American
+shores," as they called it, would bring us right in the road of vessels
+from all parts of the world. My business was to listen and to act as
+circumstances should dictate, with good judgment, if possible, for the
+preservation of my own and the lives of the old man and his daughter.
+
+The carpenter now paused to hear what I had to say. Finding this, I
+exclaimed--
+
+"I know what you want me to do; and the sooner you fix upon a point to
+start for the better."
+
+"Can't you advise us?" said one of the men. "Give us some place easily
+fetched."
+
+"I was never on the North American coast," I answered.
+
+"Well, Ameriky ain't the only place in the world," said Fish.
+
+"You'd best not say that when you're there," exclaimed Johnson.
+
+"Most of the hands wants to go ashore in Ameriky, and so that's
+settled, mates," said the carpenter sharply.
+
+"Let's keep south, anyhow, say I. If we can make New Orleans there's
+plenty of vessels sailing every day from that port, paying good wages,"
+said Johnson.
+
+"And every man can choose for hisself where he'll sail for," observed
+Fish.
+
+"Make up your minds," I exclaimed, "and I'll alter the ship's course."
+
+So saying, I got off the grating and walked to the other end of the
+poop.
+
+I was much easier in my mind now that I had observed the disposition of
+the men. They were unquestionably alarmed by what they had done, which
+was tolerable security against the commission of further outrages.
+Their project of quitting the ship when near land and making for the
+shore, where, doubtless, they would represent themselves as shipwrecked
+seamen, was practicable and struck me as ingenious; for as soon as they
+got ashore they would disperse, and ship on board fresh vessels, and
+so defy inquiry even should suspicion be excited, or one of them peach
+upon his fellows. These I at least assumed to be their plans. But how
+far they would affect my own safety I could not tell. I doubted if they
+would let me leave the ship, as they might be sure that on my landing
+I should hasten, to inform against them. But I would not allow my
+mind to be troubled with considerations of the future at that time.
+All my energies were required to deal with the crisis of the moment,
+and to guard myself against being led by too much confidence in their
+promises, into any step which might prove fatal to me and those I had
+promised to protect.
+
+The dawn was now bright in the east and the wind strong from the
+southward. The ship was chopping on the tumbling seas with scarcely
+any way upon her; but the menacing aspect of the sky was fast fading,
+and there was a promise of fair weather in the clouds, which ranged
+high and out of the reach of the breeze that was burying the ship's lee
+channels.
+
+Presently the carpenter called to me, and I went over to the men.
+
+"We're all resolved, Mr. Royle," said he in a pretty civil voice, "and
+our wotes is for New Orleans. Plenty of wessels is wrecked in the Gulf
+of Mexico, as I've heerd tell; and when we're about fifty miles off,
+you'll say so, and give us the bearings of the Mississippi, and we'll
+not trouble you any more."
+
+"How's her head?" I asked the man at the wheel.
+
+"Sou'-west," he replied.
+
+"Keep her away," I exclaimed, for the weather-leeches were flat.
+
+"What's our true course for New Orleans?" asked the carpenter
+suspiciously.
+
+"Stop a bit and I'll show you," I answered, and went below to the
+captain's cabin to get the chart.
+
+"Steward!" I called.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the miserable whining voice. It was still too dark
+for me to see the man.
+
+"Make your mind easy--they'll not hurt you," I said.
+
+He started up and rushed towards me like a madman.
+
+"May God in heaven bless you!" he cried, delirious with joy.
+
+"Hold off!" I exclaimed, keeping him away with my outstretched hand.
+"Get your wits about you and remain here for the present. Don't let
+them hear you, and don't show yourself until I call you."
+
+I could have said nothing better to repress his violent manifestations
+of delight; for he at once went cowering again into the gloom of the
+corner.
+
+I struck a wax match, and after a short search found the chart of the
+North Atlantic upon which the ship's course, so far as she had gone up
+to noon on the preceding day, was pricked off. I took this on deck,
+spread it on the skylight and showed our whereabouts to the men.
+
+"Our course," said I, "is south-west and by west."
+
+They bent their faces over the chart, studying it curiously.
+
+"Are you satisfied, Mr. Stevens?" I asked him.
+
+"Oh, I suppose it's all right," answered he.
+
+"Slacken away the lee-braces," I said. "Put your helm up" (to the man
+at the wheel).
+
+The men went tumbling off the poop to man the braces, and in a few
+minutes we were making a fair wind.
+
+Both the carpenter and the boatswain remained on the poop.
+
+"Some hands lay aloft and loose the fore and main top-gallant sails!" I
+called out. And turning to the carpenter: "Mr. Stevens," I said, "I'll
+navigate this ship for you and your mates to within fifty miles off the
+mouths of the Mississippi, as you wish; but on the conditions I have
+already named. Do you remember?"
+
+"Oh yes," he growled. "We've done enough--too much, I dessay, though
+not more than the beggars desarved. All that we want is to get out o'
+this cursed wessel."
+
+"Very well," I said. "But I won't undertake to pilot this ship safely
+unless my orders are obeyed."
+
+"The men are quite willin' to obey you, so long as you're true to 'em,"
+he rejoined.
+
+"You may do what you like with the cuddy stores; though if you take my
+advice you will let the steward serve them out in the regular way, that
+they may last; otherwise you will eat them all up before we reach our
+journey's end, and have to fall back upon the bad provisions. But I
+must have control of the spirits."
+
+"And what allowance do you mean to put us on?" demanded the carpenter.
+
+"I shall be advised by you," said I.
+
+This was turning the tables. He pulled off his cap and scratched his
+head.
+
+"Three tots a day?" he suggested.
+
+"Very well," I said; "but you'll stop at that?"
+
+"Well, perhaps we can do on three tots a day," he answered, after
+deliberating.
+
+"And you engage that the steward will be protected against any violence
+while serving out the men's allowance?"
+
+"Mates!" he suddenly called out to the men who were standing by to
+sheet home the top-gallant sails; "will three tots o' grog a day keep
+you alive?"
+
+"Are we to have it all at once?" one of them answered.
+
+"No," I replied; "three times a day."
+
+"Now then, my lads, let's know your minds," cried the boatswain.
+
+A young ordinary seaman answered--"Three ain't enough." But one of
+the older hands turned upon him, exclaiming, "Why, you bit of a
+snuffler! where will _you_ stow all that rum? Don't go answerin' for
+your betters, my young scaramouch, or maybe you'll be findin' yourself
+brought up with a round turn. That'll do!" he called out to us.
+
+"Right you are!" replied the carpenter.
+
+"Sheet home!" I cried, as the sails fell from the top-gallant yards,
+anxious to clinch this matter of the grog.
+
+And so it rested.
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+    LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET
+    AND CHARING CROSS.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
+preference was found in the three volumes of this novel, or to remedy
+simple typographical errors; otherwise they were not changed.
+
+Dialect and other non-standard spellings have not been changed.
+Examples of unchanged spelling: "befel", "mirrowed", "dose" (for
+"doze"), "jobbed" (for "jabbed"), "wessel" (for "vessel") "biled" (for
+"boiled").
+
+Spaces before the contraction "'ll" (for "will") have been retained.
+
+Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines have been retained.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Volume 1
+of 3, by William Clark Russell
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44497 ***