Many Cargoes Part 25

The mate, taking down a gla.s.s, helped himself liberally, and, having made sure of it, sympathetically, but politely, expressed his firm opinion that the men would not touch it under any conditions whatever.

"You don't quite understand how firm they are," said he; "you think it's just a new fad with 'em, but it ain't."

"They'll drink it," said the skipper, taking up two of the bottles.

"Bring the other on deck for me."

The mate complied, wonderingly, and, laden with prime old Jamaica, ascended the steps.

"What's this?" inquired the skipper, crossing over to d.i.c.k, and holding out a bottle.

"Pison, sir," said d.i.c.k promptly.

"Have a drop," said the skipper jovially.

"Not for twenty pounds," said the old man, with a look of horror.

"Not for two million pounds," said Sam, with financial precision.

"Will anybody have a drop?" asked the owner, waving the bottle to and fro.

As he spoke a grimy paw shot out from behind him, and, before he quite realised the situation, the cook had accepted the invitation, and was hurriedly making the most of it.

"Not you," growled the skipper, s.n.a.t.c.hing the bottle from him; "I didn't mean you. Well, my lads, if you won't have it neat you shall have it watered."

Before anybody could guess his intention he walked to the water-cask, and, removing the cover, poured in the rum. In the midst of a profound silence he emptied the three bottles, and then, with a triumphant smile, turned and confronted his astonished crew.

"What's in that cask, d.i.c.k?" he asked quietly.

"Rum and water," groaned d.i.c.k; "but that ain't fair play, sir. We've kep' to our part o' the agreement, sir, an' you ought to ha' kep' to yours."

"So I have," was the quick reply; "so I have, an' I still keep to it.

Don't you see this, my lads; when you start playing antics with me you're playing a fool's game, an' you're bound to come a cropper. Some men would ha' waited longer afore they spiled their game, but I think you've suffered enough. Now there's a lump of beef and some taters on, an' you'd better go and make a good square meal, an' next time you want to alter the religion of people as knows better than you do, think twice."

"We don't want no beef, sir; biskit'll do for us," said d.i.c.k firmly.

"All right, please yourselves," said the skipper; "but mind, no hanky-panky, no coming for drink when my back's turned; this cask'll be watched; but if you do alter your mind about the beef you can tell the cook to get it for you any time you like."

He threw the bottles overboard, and, ignoring the groaning and head-shaking of the men, walked away, listening with avidity to the respectful tributes to his genius tendered by the mate and cook-flattery so delicate and so genuine withal that he opened another bottle.

"There's just one thing," said the mate presently; "won't the rum affect the cooking a good deal?"

"I never thought o' that," admitted the skipper; "still, we musn't expect to have everything our own way."

"No, no," said the mate blankly, admiring the other's choice of p.r.o.nouns.

Up to Friday afternoon the skipper went about with a smile of kindly satisfaction on his face; but in the evening it weakened somewhat, and by Sat.u.r.day morning it had vanished altogether, and was replaced by an expression of blank amazement and anxiety, for the crew shunned the water cask as though it were poison, without appearing to suffer the slightest inconvenience. A visible air of proprietorship appeared on their faces whenever they looked at the skipper, and the now frightened man inveighed fiercely to the mate against the improper methods of conversion patronised by some religious bodies, and the aggravating obstinacy of some of their followers.

"It's wonderful what enthusiasm'll do for a man," said Bob reflectively; "I knew a man once-"

"I don't want none o' your lies," interposed the other rudely.

"An' I don't want your blamed rum and water, if it comes to that," said the mate, firing up. "When a man's tea is made with rum, an' his beef is biled in it, he begins to wonder whether he's shipped with a seaman or a-a-"

"A what?" shouted the skipper. "Say it!"

"I can't think o' nothing foolish enough," was the frank reply. "It's all right for you, becos it's the last licker as you'll be allowed to taste, but it's rough on me and the cook."

"d.a.m.n you an' the cook," said the skipper, and went on deck to see whether the men's tongues were hanging out.

By Sunday morning he was frantic; the men were hale and well enough, though, perhaps, a trifle thin, and he began to believe with the cook that the age of miracles had not yet pa.s.sed.

It was a broiling hot day, and, to add to his discomfort, the mate, who was consumed by a raging thirst, lay panting in the shade of the mainsail, exchanging condolences of a most offensive nature with the cook every time he looked his way.

All the morning he grumbled incessantly, until at length, warned by an offensive smell of rum that dinner was on the table, he got up and went below.

At the foot of the ladder he paused abruptly, for the skipper was leaning back in his seat, gazing in a fascinated manner at some object on the table.

"What's the matter?" inquired the mate in alarm.

The other, who did not appear to hear the question, made no answer, but continued to stare in a most extraordinary fashion at a bottle which graced the centre of the table.

"What is it?" inquired the mate, not venturing to trust his eyes.

"WATER? Where did it come from?"

"Cook!" roared the skipper, turning a bloodshot eye on that worthy, as his pallid face showed behind the mate, "what's this? If you say it's water I'll kill you."

"I don't know what it is, sir," said the cook cautiously; "but d.i.c.k sent it to you with his best respects, and I was to say as there's plenty more where that came from. He's a nasty, under'anded, deceitful old man, is d.i.c.k, sir, an' it seems he laid in a stock o' water in bottles an'

the like afore you doctored the cask, an' the men have had it locked up in their chests ever since."

"d.i.c.k's a very clever old man," remarked the mate, pouring himself out a gla.s.s, and drinking it with infinite relish, "ain't he, cap'n? It'll be a privilege to jine anything that man's connected with, won't it?"

He paused for a reply, but none came, for the cap'n, with dim eyes, was staring blankly into a future so lonely and uncongenial that he had lost the power of speech-even of that which, at other crises, had never failed to afford him relief. The mate gazed at him curiously for a moment, and then, imitating the example of the cook, quitted the cabin.

IN MID-ATLANTIC

No, sir," said the night-watchman, as he took a seat on a post at the end of the jetty, and stowed a huge piece of tobacco in his cheek. "No, man an' boy, I was at sea forty years afore I took on this job, but I can't say as ever I saw a real, downright ghost."

This was disappointing, and I said so. Previous experience of the power of Bill's vision had led me to expect something very different.

"Not but what I've known some queer things happen," said Bill, fixing his eyes on the Surrey side, and going off into a kind of trance. "Queer things."

I waited patiently; Bill's eyes, after resting for some time on Surrey, began to slowly cross the river, paused midway in reasonable hopes of a collision between a tug with its flotilla of barges and a penny steamer, and then came back to me.