Afloat at Last Part 5

The light was certainly dim, but quite enough for me to see how finely fitted-up the saloon was, with bird's-eye maple panelling to the cabins and gilt-mouldings; while the b.u.t.t of the mizzen-mast that ran up through the deck and divided the table, was handsomely decorated all round its base, the Silver Queen having been originally intended for the pa.s.senger trade, although since turned into a cargo ship, and now going out to Shanghai with a freight of Manchester goods, and Sheffield and Birmingham hardware.

A nicely-cushioned seat with a reversible back, so that people could either face their cabins or the table as they pleased by shifting it this way and that, was fixed along either side of the table; and at the extreme aftermost end of this, behind the mizzen-mast, I saw Mr Saunders and Matthews. They were comfortably enjoying themselves over their tea, judging by the cups and saucers before them, and other accompaniments of that meal; and evidently not hurrying themselves about it, for it was more than an hour since they had left the deck.

Our appearance did not at all discompose them; both looking up at our entrance, while Mr Saunders motioned to Tim to take a seat beside him.

"Hullo, bosun! Come in to forage--eh?" he cried, with his mouth still full and his jaws wagging away, "Bring yourself to an anchor, old ship; and bear a hand."

"Thank ye kindly, Misther Saunders; I will sorr, savin' y'r prisince,"

said Tim Rooney, seating himself, however, on the other side of the table close to the end of the pa.s.sage way by which we had entered. "I thought it toime to have a bit atwane me teeth as I haven't tasted bit nor sup since dinner, an' that war at eight bells. This youngster, too, wor famished, an' so I brought him along o' me."

"I'm sure you're welcome," answered the second mate, losing no time though at his eating, but still keeping up his knife and fork play while talking. "Ah, the new apprentice Mr Mackay was telling me about just now--eh?"

"Yes, sir," said I for he glanced over towards me as he spoke.

"Well, I hope you'll get on well with your shipmates."

He did not say any more, completing his sentence by draining his tea- cup; and my friend the boatswain, apparently taking this as a hint, shouted out in a tone that made my ears tingle: "Ahoy there, stoo-ard!"

"Yase, yase, I coom," replied someone in a queer squeaky voice, that had a strong foreign accent, from somewhere in the darkness beyond the foot of the the companion way, where the gleam of the solitary saloon lamp did not quite penetrate; "I coom, sare, queek, queek."

"Ye'd betther come sharp, sharp, or I'll know the rayson why," growled Tim Rooney, however, before he could say any more a little dark man with black crinkly hair like a negro's emerged into the light, looking by no means amiable at being disturbed by the boatswain's hail.

"What you want--hey?" he asked angrily. "I got my bizness to do in pantry, 'fore ze cap'in coom aboard."

"What do I want, me joker?" returned Tim, in no way put out by his rude address. "I want somethin' to ate for me an' this young jintleman here.

D'ye hear that?"

"Zere's nuzzing left," surlily answered the man. "You should coom down in ze propare time."

"The d.i.c.kens I should? Confound y'r impudence, ye mangy Porteegee swab!

Allow me to till ye, Misther Paydro Carvalho--an' be the powers it's a sin ag'in the blessed Saint Pater to name such an ugly thafe as ye afther him--that I'll pipe down to grub whin I loikes widout axin y'r laive or license. Jist ye look sharp, d'ye hear, an' git us somethin'

to ate at once!"

To emphasise his words, the boatswain jumped up from his seat as he spoke; and the other, thinking he was going to make an attack on him, dodged to the opposite side of the table so as to have this as a sort of bulwark in between the irate Irishman and himself, vehemently protesting all the while that there was "nuzzing" he could put on the table.

"Nonsense, steward," interposed the second mate, who with Matthews seemed highly amused at the altercation, the two grinning between their bites of bread and b.u.t.ter. "There's that tin of corned-beef you opened for me just now, bring that."

"An' tay," roared out Tim Rooney, resuming his seat again, which seeing, the dark little man, who had grown almost pallid with fright, swiftly retreated into the darkness of his pantry, muttering below his breath; while Tim, turning to me, asked, "Ye'd loike some tay wid y'r grub, Misther Gray-ham, wouldn't ye now?"

"Yes," I said.

"Tay for two, ye spalpeen!" he thereupon roared out a second time; "an'

ye'd betther look sharp, too, d'ye hear?"

The answer to this was a tremendous smash from the pantry, and the sound of things clattering about and rolling on the floor, as if all the crockery in the ship was broken, whereat Tim and the second mate and Matthews burst altogether into one simultaneous shout of laughter.

"Tare an' 'ouns, he's at it ag'in!" cried the boatswain when he was able to speak; "he's at it ag'in!"

"Aye, he's at it again. A rum chap, ain't he?" said Mr Saunders.

"It's ownly his nasty timper, though; an' he vints it on them poor harmless things bekase he's too much av a coward to have it out wid them that angers him," replied Tim Rooney, adding, as another crash resounded from the distance: "Jist he'r him now. Bedad he's havin' a foine fling this toime, an' no misthake at all, at all!"

"What is he doing?" I asked, seeing that the boatswain and the other two took the uproar as a matter of course, and were in no way surprised at it. "Is he breaking things?"

"No, ma bouchal," replied Tim carelessly. "He's ownly kickin' presarved mate tins about the flure av his panthry, which he kapes especial fur such toimes as he's in a rage wid anyone as offinds him, whin, instead av standin' up loike a man an' foightin' it out wid the chap that angers him, he goes and locks himsilf in the panthry an' kicks the harmless ould tins about, an' bangs 'em ag'in the bulkhead at the side, till ye'd think he was smashin' the howl ship!"

"What a funny man!" I exclaimed.

"He's all that," said the boatswain sententiously. "An' the strangest thing av all is, that whin he's done kickin' the tins about an' has vinted his pa.s.sion, he'll come out av his panthry as cool an' calm as a Christian, an' do jist what ye wants him, as swately as if he'd nivir bin in a timper at all, at all. Jist watch him now."

It was as Tim Rooney explained.

While he was yet describing the steward's peculiar temperament and strange characteristics, the clattering sounds all at once ceased in the pantry; and the Portuguese presently appeared with a tray on which were clean plates and cups and saucers, which he proceeded to lay neatly and dexterously at one end of the table, looking as calm and quiet as if "b.u.t.ther wouldn't milt in his mouth, sure," as Tim remarked.

Making a second journey back to the pantry, he returned with a dish of cold beef and a cheese, besides a plate piled up with slices of bread and b.u.t.ter, which he certainly must have been cutting all the time he was kicking the tins about. Then, taking a large bronze teapot from the top of a stove in the after part of the cabin, where it had been keeping hot all the while without my noticing it before, the steward poured out a cup of tea apiece for Tim Rooney and myself, asking politely if there was anything more he could get us.

"No, thank ye, Paydro," replied Tim rubbing his hands at sight of the eatables; "this will do foorst rate, me bhoy. Misther Gray-ham, why don't ye fire away, ma bouchal? Sure an' y'r tay's gettin' cowld."

I hardly needed any pressing, feeling by this time as hungry as a hunter; the waiting having sharpened my appet.i.te, as well as the sight of the second mate and Matthews at work at the other end of the table, they only just finishing their meal and going up on deck again as we commenced ours.

We did not lose any time, though, for all that, when once we began, I can tell you, following to the full the second mate's praiseworthy example.

No; for, we made such good use of our opportunities that in less than a quarter of an hour we had both a.s.suaged our hunger--Tim appearing as bad in this respect as myself--by making a general clearance of everything eatable on the table, the corned-beef and bread and b.u.t.ter and piece of cheese vanishing as if by magic, washed down by sundry cups of tea, which, if not strong, made up for this deficiency by being as sweet as moist brown sugar could make it.

"Sure, an' that Paydro ain't such a bad sort av chap afther all,"

observed Tim Rooney complacently as he rose from his seat, feeling comfortable as to his interior economy, the same as I did, and at peace with all mankind. "Bedad, I'd forgive him ivrythin', for a choild could play wid me now!"

Any further remark on his part, however, was cut short at the moment by a hail from Mr Mackay down the companion.

"Bosun, ahoy, below there!"

"Aye, aye, sorr!" cried Tim Rooney starting up and making a rush for the doorway leading to the main-deck from the cuddy, "I'm a-coming, sorr!"

And the next moment he was out on the deck, "two bells," or five o'clock, as I knew by this time, just striking from the fore part of the ship as we both emerged from below the break of the p.o.o.p in view of those standing above--I having followed close on Tim Rooney's heels like his very shadow.

"Oh, you're there, bosun!" exclaimed Mr Mackay as soon as he caught sight of Tim out on the deck below him. "We're just abreast of Tilbury, and the pilot thinks we had better bring up in accordance with Captain Gillespie's orders. Are you ready for anchoring?"

"Quite riddy, sorr," replied Tim, looking up at the first mate and the man in the oilskin, whom I now knew to be the Thames pilot, as they leaned over the p.o.o.p rail. "Lasteways, as soon as iver I can rache the fo'c's'le."

"Carry-on then. You'll find Mr Saunders already in the bows to help you," said Mr Mackay, hailing at the same time the master of the tug that had brought us so far down the river, and who was at his post on the paddle-box waiting for the pilot's orders to "stand by," the little steamer, having already stopped her engines and now busy blowing off her waste steam, waiting for us to cast off her towing-hawser from our bollard, where it was belayed on the forecastle.

While I was noticing these details, Tim was scrambling forwards towards the windla.s.s bitts, mounting thence on to the forecastle, where Mr Saunders and Matthews, with the other middies, were a.s.sembled.

Adams, who had been relieved from the wheel, and the other two sailors, as well as the boy who remained with the rest after coming out to strike the bell, was attending to the compressor and watching the cable on the main-deck, just below the group above, which I now joined, racing after my friend Tim.

Looking back astern as soon as I attained this elevated position in the bows of the ship, I noticed the pilot on the p.o.o.p bring his arm down, whereupon Mr Mackay by his side, putting both his hands to his mouth for a speaking trumpet, shouted out towards us on the forecastle:

"Are you all ready for'ard?"