Chapter Eleven.
“One Piecee Cock-Fightee.”
The ship had nearly all her canvas spread, so as to take advantage of the first puff of air which came to waft us beyond the Doldrums towards the region of the south-east trades, then beginning to blow just below the calm belt; consequently, it took all hands some time to clew up and furl all the light upper sails, and squall after squall burst over us ere we could reduce the ship to her proper fighting trim of reefed topsails and courses, our outer jib getting torn to shreds before it could be handed.
“Begorra, it’s a buster an’ no mishtake!” exclaimed Tim Rooney coming off the forecastle as soon as he had seen the other head sails attended to, and setting me free from the lashings with which his whilom tritons had bound my hands and legs. “Sp’ilin’ all av our fun, too, Misther Gray-ham, jist whin I wor goin’ to shave ye!”
I did not regret this, though, I’m sure. Still, I did not stop to answer him, being in too great a hurry to join Tom Jerrold and the others aft in taking in the mizzen-royal and topgallant—my fellow apprentices having had time already to get aloft while I was rolling on the deck forward like a trussed fowl!
“Take it aisy, me darlint,” shouted Tim after me as I rushed up the poop ladder and swung myself into the shrouds; but, I was half-way up the ratlines before he could get out the end of his exordium, “Aisy does it!”
I was too late to help hand the royal, my especial sail since I had got familiar with my footing aloft; but the mizzen-topgallant sheets, bowlines and halliards having been hardly a second let go, and the men on the poop having only just begun to haul on the clewlines and buntlines, I was quite in time to get out on this yard. My aid, indeed, came in usefully in assisting to stow the sail; although, in my haste not to be eclipsed by Tom Jerrold, I nearly got knocked off my perch on the foot-rope through the canvas ballooning out, in the same way as it did when Joe Fergusson so narrowly escaped death only three weeks or so before!
The fright, as I clutched hold of a rope and saved myself, made my heart come in my mouth; and what with this, and the turmoil of the elements around me as I clung to the yard, with the deck of the ship so small and far-away below, and saw the immense area of the swelling sea as far as the eye could reach—now chopped up into short rolling waves, crowned with foam, almost in an instant, and the black cloud-covered dome of the heavens that was almost as dark as at midnight—I could not help thinking of the grandeur of the works of God, and the insignificance of man and his pigmy attempts to master the elements.
For, beyond the quick sharp puffs of wind that came with the squalls of rain from almost every point of the compass in succession, the downpour which descended from the overcast sky was accompanied with terrible ear-splitting peals of thunder. This seemed to rattle and roll almost immediately above our heads, as if the overhanging black vault was about to burst open every moment; while dazzling forked flashes of bluish lightning zigzagged across the horizon from the zenith, first blinding our eyes with its brilliancy for a second and then making the darkness all around the darker as the vivid glare vanished and the accompanying thunderbolt sank into the sea—providentially far off to leeward, where the full force of the tropical storm was spent, and not near our vessel.
The sight was an awful and magnificent one to me suspended there in mid-air, as it were; but I confess I was not sorry when, presently, the mizzen-topgallant was snugly stowed, with the gaskets put round it, and I was able to get down to the more substantial deck below, where I was not quite so close to the cloud war going on above!
When I reached the poop, as the Silver Queen was now stripped of her superfluous canvas and ready for anything that might happen should the squalls last, Mr Mackay seeing that I was wet through told me that I might go down and change my clothes. This I gratefully did, feeling all the better on getting into a dry suit, over which I took the precaution before coming out of the deck-house again of rigging my waterproof and a tarpaulin hat; for the rain was still coming down in a regular deluge, “as if the sluice-valve of the water tank above had somehow or other jammed foul, so that the water couldn’t be turned off for a while”—this being Tom Jerrold’s explanation of it.
Feeling chilled from the damp after the great heat of the morning, as soon as I had doffed my wet things I went round to the galley to see if I could discover a drop of hot coffee knocking about, as it was getting on for tea-time, being now late in the afternoon; but when I got there, instead of finding Ching Wang, who was always punctuality itself in the matter of meal-times, busy with the coppers, there he was flat on his stomach on the floor of his caboose, with a hideous little brass image or idol, which might have been Buddha for all that I know to the contrary, set up in the corner—the Chinese cook being so actively engaged in salaaming in front of this image, by touching the deck with his forehead and burning bits of gilt paper before it, as incense I suppose, that he did not notice me.
“Hullo, Ching Wang,” I said, “what are you about?”
“Me chin chin joss, lilly pijjin,” he answered, turning to me his round, unconscious, and imperturbable face as if he were engaged in some ordinary occupation of everyday life. “Me askee him me watchee if kyphong catchee ship, no sabey?”
The poor fellow evidently believed more in his god than I did in mine; for here he was in a moment of danger, as he thought, praying for help, while I, who had almost lost my life when I so nearly escaped tumbling from the topgallant yard only a moment or so since, had thoughtlessly forgotten Him who had saved me!
I think of this now, but I didn’t then. Nay, I even laughed at Ching Wang’s ignorance when speaking to Tim Rooney, whom I met as I retreated from the galley, telling him that I wondered how the generally astute Chinaman could really fancy he was propitiating Buddha, or whoever else he believed in as his sovereign deity, by burning a few scraps of tinsel paper to do honour to the senseless image.
“Be jabers, though,” argued Tim on my giving him this opinion of mine, “I can’t say, sorr, as how we Christians be any the betther.”
“Why!” I exclaimed indignantly. “How can you say so?”
“Begorra, sure we all thry to have our ray-ligion as chape as we can,” replied he coolly. “Don’t we, Cath’lics an’ Protistints aloike, for there’s little to choose atwane us on the p’int, contint oursilves wid as little as we can hilp, goin’ once to chapel or church, mebbe, av a Sunday an’ thinkin’ we’ve wiped out all the avil we may a-done in the wake, an’ have a clane sheet for the nixt one—jist as this poor ig’rant haythin booms his goold paper afore his joss an’ thinks that clears off all his ould scores. I say no differ, sure, mesilf, Misther Gray-ham, atwane us, that same, as I tould ye.”
I did not answer Tim, but his words affected me more than any sermon I ever heard from the pulpit; and, as I went back to my cabin I determined to try and keep to something I had promised father before parting from him, and which I had neglected up to then—my promise being never to forget my daily prayer to “Him who rules the waves,” even should I have no time to look at my Bible.
The weather cleared up before sunset, and the wind subsequently began to blow steadily from the southward and eastward, showing that we had at length got into the wished-for “trade;” so the ship soon had all plain sail set on her again, now heading, though, sou’-sou’-west on the port tack, and making a bee-line almost for the island of Trinidad off the South American coast.
Having lost our outer jib, however, from its blowing away in the first squall, a new one had to be fitted and bent on; and as we were hoisting studding sails, too, the jewel block on the main-topsail yard carried away. So, another block had to be got up and secured to the end of the yard-arm before the halliards could be rove afresh for getting up the stu’n’sail; and, I had opportunities in both instances for acquiring better knowledge of seamanship—gaining more by watching Adams the sailmaker and Tim Rooney at work on their respective jobs, than I could have obtained in a twelvemonth by the perusal of books or from oral information.
We had long lost sight of our old friend the North Star and his pointers, who guide the mariner, should he be without a compass, in northern latitudes, making acquaintance now with a new constellation, the Southern Cross, which grew more brilliant each night as we ran further and further below the Equator. Other stars, too, of surpassing brightness made the heavens all radiant as soon as the sun set each evening, there being no twilight to speak of—the night and its glories coming upon us as quickly as the last scrap of daylight fled. In the morning it was the same, the firmament being still bright with starlight when the glorious orb of day rose in all his majesty and paled into insignificance his lesser rivals, who, however, twinkled up to the very last.
This was by far the jolliest part of our voyage; for, although the weather was nice and warm, it had not that disagreeable, clammy heat we experienced at the Line, on account of the fresh south-east breeze tempering the effect of the sun, which, however, still shone down on us at noon with tropical force, its rays being as potent almost as at the Equator.
But the sea had lost all that glassy brazen look it had in the calm latitudes, now dancing with life and as blue as the heavens above it; while as our gallant ship sailed on, running pretty large on the port tack with everything set that could draw—skysails being hoisted on top of the royals and staysails, and trysails on every mast, with the foretopmast staysail, jib and flying jib forward, and upper and lower stu’n’sails spread out to windward—she looked like some beautiful bird in full flight with outstretched wings, her motion through the water being so easy and graceful, while the sparkling spray was tossed up sometimes over the sprit-sail yard as she ever and anon dipped her bows, as if curtsying to Neptune. It seemed to me the most delightful thing in the world to be there, ship and sea and air and sky being all alike in harmony, expressing the poetry of progression!
My work, too, although we had plenty to do, to “keep us out of mischief,” as the captain said, was not too hard, especially at this period.
In the morning, after an early coffee, when few thought of turning in again although it might be their watch below, the weather was so enjoyable, the order was given for “brooms and buckets aft,” and the first duty of the day was attended to. This was to scrub decks, just as in a well-ordered household the servant cleans the door-step before anyone is astir; the decks of a ship giving as good a notion of what her commander is like, as the door-step of a house does of its mistress!
For this job the men forward rigged the head pump and sluiced the forecastle and main-deck; while we apprentices had to wash down the poop, having a fine time over it dowsing one another with buckets of water, and chasing each other round the mizzen-mast and binnacle, or else dodging the expected deluge behind the skylight—sometimes awaking Captain Gillespie up, and making him come up the companion in a towering rage to ask “what the dickens” we were “kicking up all that row for?”
Once, as he came up in this way, Tom Jerrold caught him full in the face with a bucket of water he was pitching at me; and wasn’t there a shindy over it, that’s all! “Old Jock” was unable to find out who did it, for of course none of us would tell on Tom, and the water in the captain’s eyes prevented him from seeing who was his assailant; but, he immediately ordered Tom, as well as Weeks and I, all up into the cross-trees, Tom at the fore, Sam at the main, and I on the mizzen-mast, to “look out for land,” instead of having our breakfast.
As we were some hundreds of miles off the nearest coast, our task of looking out for land was entirely a work of supererogation; still, we did not realise this, and strained our eyes vainly until we were called down from aloft at “two bells,” after the hands had all had their breakfast and there was nothing left for us. This was “Jock’s” satisfaction in return for the shower bath he had been treated to so unceremoniously. Tom Jerrold afterwards said that he did not notice Jock coming up the companion way, and that of course he would never have dreamt of treating the captain so disrespectfully; but, as Master Tom invariably grinned whenever he made this declaration, Weeks and I, as well as Tim Rooney, who somehow or other got hold of the yarn, all had our suspicions on the point.
However, this is a digression from the description of our daily duties.
After scrubbing decks, each watch alternately had breakfast; and then, as now, when the wind was fair and hardly a brace or rope required to be handed from morning till night or from night till morning, we and the rest of the crew were set to work unravelling ends of junk and picking oakum, like convicts.
After being thus disintegrated, the tow was spun into sennit or fine twine and yarn which is always of use on board, quantities of it being used in “serving” and “parcelling” for chafing gear.
At noon, the crew had their dinner, watch in and watch out, but we apprentices had to wait till the captain and mates had theirs; although, as I’ve already mentioned, we saw little of the delicacies of the cabin table except occasionally of a Sunday, on which day, sometimes, Captain Gillespie’s heart was more benevolently inclined towards us apparently. During the afternoon watch on week-days we were allowed to amuse ourselves as we liked, and I frequently took advantage of this opportunity to learn all that Tim Rooney and Adams could teach me forward—the two being great cronies, and busying themselves at this period of the day, if there were nothing to call their attention elsewhere, in doing odd jobs on the forecastle, the one in the sailmaking line and the other attending to his legitimate occupation of looking after the weak points of the rigging, all concerning which came within his special province as boatswain.
After tea, all hands were allowed to skylark about the decks below and aloft until the end of the second dog-watch at “eight bells;” when, the night being fairly on us in the southern latitudes we were traversing, those whose turn it was to go below turned in, and the others having the “first watch” took the deck until they were relieved at midnight and retired to their well earned rest. But, of course, should “all hands” be called to take in sail, on account of the wind shifting or a sudden squall breaking over the ship, which fortunately did not happen at the time of which I am speaking, those who might only have just turned in had to turn out again instanter. In the same way, I may add, had the weather been stormy and changeable all of us would have had plenty to do in taking in and setting sail, without leisure for sennit reeving and yarn spinning and playing “Tom Cox’s traverse” about the decks from morning till night, as we did in those halcyon days between the tropics.
We sighted Martin Vas Rocks, to the eastward of Trinidad Islands, in latitude 20 degrees 29 minutes south and longitude 28 degrees 51 minutes west, a little over a week from our leaving the Line, having made a very good passage so far from England, this being our thirty-sixth day out.
Soon after this, the south-east trades failing us and varying westerly breezes taking their place, we hauled our wind, altering our course to south-east by south, and making to pass the meridian on the forty-seventh parallel of latitude. This we did so as to get well to the southward of the Cape of Good Hope, between which and ourselves a long stretch of some three thousand miles of water lay; although both Captain Gillespie and Mr Mackay appeared to make nothing of this, looking upon it as the easiest part of our journey.
Indeed, the latter told me so.
“Now, it’s all plain sailing, my boy, and we ought to run that distance in a fortnight or so from here, with the strong westerly and sou’-western winds we’ll soon fetch into on this tack,” said he; “but, wait till we come to the region of the Flying Dutchman’s Cape, and then you’ll make acquaintance with a sea such as you have never seen before, all that we’ve gone through as yet being merely child’s play in comparison.”
“What, worse than the Bay of Biscay?” I cried.
“Why, that was only a fleabite, youngster,” he replied laughing. “I suppose you magnified it in your imagination from being sea-sick. The weather off the Cape of Storms, however; is a very different matter. It is quite in keeping with its name!”
But, still, for the next few days, at first proceeding close-hauled on the starboard tack and then, as the wind veered more round to the west, running free before it, with all our flying kites and stu’n’sails set, the time passed as pleasantly as before; and we had about just as little to do in the way of seamanship aboard, the ship almost steering herself and hardly a tack or a sheet needing to be touched. I noticed, though, Adams a little later on with a couple of men whom he requisitioned as sailmakers’ mates busy cutting out queer little triangular pieces of canvas, which he told me were “storm staysails,” the old ones having been blown away last voyage; while I saw that Tim Rooney, besides assuring himself of the security of the masts and setting up preventer stays for additional strength by the captain’s orders, rigging up life-lines fore and aft, saying when I asked him what they were for, “To hould on wid, sure, whin we toombles into Cape weather, me darlint!”
There were no signs of any change yet, though; and the hands got so hard up for amusement with the small amount of work they had to perform, in spite of Captain Gillespie hunting up all sorts of odd jobs for them to do in the way of cleaning the brass-work of the ship and polishing the ring-bolts, that they got into that “mischief,” which, the proverb tells us, Satan frequently “finds for idle hands” to do.
Tom Jerrold and I were in the boatswain’s cabin one afternoon teaching the starling to speak a fresh sentence—the bird having got quite tame and learnt to talk very well already, saying “Bad cess to ye” and “Tip us yer flipper,” just like Tim Rooney, with his brogue and all; when, all at once, we heard some scrambling going on in the long-boat above the deckhouse, and the sound of men’s voices whispering together.
“Some of the fellows forrud are having a rig with the skipper’s pigs,” cried Tom. “Let us watch and see what they’re up to.”
“They can’t be hurting the poor brutes,” said I, speaking in the same subdued tone, so as not to alarm the men and make them think anyone was listening; “I’m sure of that, or they would soon make a noise!”
“I suppose I was mistaken,” observed Tom presently, when we could not hear the sailor’s whispering voices any longer nor any grunting from the pigs; although we kept our ears on the alert. “I fancy, though, they were up to something, from a remark I heard just now when I passed by the fo’c’s’le as the starboard watch were having their tea.”
“What was that?” I asked. “Did they speak of doing anything?”
“No-o,” replied Tom hesitatingly, as if he did not quite like telling me all he knew, being afraid perhaps of my informing Mr Mackay, from the latter and I being now known to be close friends albeit I was only an apprentice and he the first mate. “I only heard them joking about that beastly marmalade the skipper has palmed off on them, and us, too, worse luck, in lieu of our proper rations of salt junk; and one of them said he’d ‘like to swap all his lot for the voyage for a good square meal of roast pork,’ that’s all.”
“Why, any of us might have said that,” cried I laughing, and not seeing any harm in the observation. “I’m sure I would not object to a change of diet.”
Later on in the evening, though, what Tom had related was brought back to me with much point; for, a curious circumstance occurred shortly after “four bells,” when it was beginning to get dark after sunset, the night closing in so rapidly.
The captain was then on the poop talking to Mr Saunders about something or other in which they both seemed deeply interested, the one sniffing and twitching his long nose about, and the other wagging his red beard as he moved his jaws in talking. I was just above their heads in the mizzen-top, my favourite retreat of an evening, whither I had taken up a book to read, although I could barely distinguish the print by this time, daylight had disappeared so quickly on the sun’s sinking in the deep astern; when, all at once, a violent squealing and grunting broke out from the long-boat, sufficient for more than a herd of porkers all in their last agony, instead of its coming from one or even all three of the pigs Captain Gillespie had stowed there, fattening them up until he thought them big enough to kill for the table.
“Who the dickens is that troubling my pigs?” roared the captain, clutching hold of the brass rail of the poop in front of him, and squinting forwards as well as he could in the dim light to where the clew of the main-sail just lifting disclosed the fore part of the deck-house with the long-boat on top. “None of your sky-larking there, d’ye hear? Leave ’em alone!”
But, there was no one to be seen either on top of the deck-house or in the long-boat, although the squealing still continued.
“D’ye hear me there, forrud?” shouted Captain Gillespie again in a voice of thunder, having now worked himself up into one of his tornado-like rages. “Leave those pigs alone, I tell ye!”
“Sure, sorr, there’s nobody there,” said Tim Rooney, who was on the main-deck below, just under the break of the poop. “There’s divil a sowl botherin’ the blissid pigs, sorr, as ye can say for y’rsilf. Faix, they’re ownly contrary a bit, sorr, an’ p’raps onaisy in their moind!”
“Nonsense, man!” cried Captain Gillespie stamping his foot. “It is some of those mutinous rascals carrying on their games, I—I know! Just look, will ye, bosun?”
“There ar’n’t a sowl thare, I tell ye, sorr,” protested Tim, rather a bit vexed at his word being doubted, as he turned to go forward where the row was still going on. “Ain’t I jist come from there, sorr, an’ can’t I say now wid me own eyes there ain’t nobody not nigh the long-boat nor the pigs neither—bad cess to ’em!”
He muttered the last words below his breath, and getting up into the main-rigging he climbed half-way up the shrouds, so as to be able to drop from thence on to the deck-house, this being his quickest mode of reaching the roof of that structure; and from thence, as he knew, he would of course be able to see right into the long-boat as well as inspect its four-footed tenants.
“There’s not a sowl in the boat or near it, sorr, at all, at all, cap’en dear, barrin’ the pigs sure, as I towld ye,” he repeated on getting so far; and he was just proceeding to lower himself down to the top of the deck-house by a loose rope that was hanging from aloft, when he swung himself back into the rigging in alarm as a dark body jumped out of the long-boat right across his face, uttering the terrified ejaculation, “Murther in Irish! Howly Moses, what is that?”
It was one of the pigs, which, giving vent to a most diabolical yell, appeared to leap from the long-boat deliberately over the port side of the ship into the sea, sinking immediately with a stifled grunt, alongside.
Then more weird squeaking was heard, and a second pig imitated his comrade’s example, jumping also from the boat overboard—just as if they were playing the game of “follow my leader” which we often indulged in when sky-larking in the second dog-watch!
This was no sky-larking, however, for the captain on the poop, as well as Mr Saunders and myself up in the mizzen-top, had witnessed the whole of the strange occurrence the same as Tim Rooney, and all of us were equally astonished.
As for Captain Gillespie, being a very superstitious man, he seemed strongly impressed by what had happened. His voice quite trembled as he called out to Tim Rooney after a moment’s pause, during which he was too much startled to speak:
“Wha—what’s the matter with them, bosun?”
“Sorry o’ me knows,” replied Tim in an equally awestruck voice, either full of real or very well assumed terror, “barrin’ that the divil’s got howld av ’em; an’ it’s raal vexed I am, sorr, av spakin’ so moighty disrespectful av his honour jist now. Aye, take me worrud for it, cap’en, they’re possiss’d, as sure as eggs is mate!”
“I think the same, and that the deil’s got into ’em,” said Captain Gillespie gravely, wrinkling up his nose so much and nodding his head, and looking so like an old owl in the bright light of the moon which had rapidly risen, and was already shining with all the fulness and brilliancy it has in these southern latitudes, that it was as much as I could do to keep from bursting out laughing and so betraying my presence in the top above his head. I was all the more amused, too, when “Old Jock” turned to the second mate and added: “I look upon this as a visitation, and am glad I never killed the animals; for I would not touch one now for anything! Have the remaining brute chucked overboard, Saunders; it would be unlucky to keep it after what has happened. I’m sure I could not bear the sight of it or to hear it grant again!”
So saying, Captain Gillespie went below and took a stiff glass of grog to recover his nerves. He must then have got into his cot for he did not appear on deck again until the middle watch—a most unusual thing for him to do.
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” however, and the aptness of the adage was well illustrated in the present instance, the men feasting on roast pork, besides putting by some tit-bits salted down for a rainy day, at the expense of “Old Jock’s” superstitious fears.
It was wonderful, though, how many legs were owned by that one “last pig” which the captain had ordered to be chucked overboard, and which Mr Saunders had, instead, given over to Ching Wang’s tender mercies for the benefit of himself and the crew, stipulating, however, that he was to have one of the best pieces stuffed and baked, the second mate being a great glutton always, and fond of good living. Yes, it was wonderful for one pig to have no less than twelve legs!
I will tell you how this was.
Tom Jerrold let me into the secret. It seems that the apparent suicidal tendencies of the pigs who jumped into the sea in that mysterious way was caused by the fore-topgallant stu’n’sail halliards being dexterously fastened round them by a couple of the hands previously in sling fashion; and when the poor brutes were jerked overboard by the aid of these, they were allowed to tow under the keel of the ship until their squeals were hushed for ever, and then drawn inboard again and cut up in the forecastle. When they were carved properly into pork, the men thought them none the less delicious because they had come to their death by water instead of by the ordinary butcher’s knife; and, as I had the opportunity of testing this opinion in a savoury little pig’s fry which Ching Wang presented me with the same evening for supper, I cannot but acknowledge that I agreed thoroughly with the judgment of the hands in the matter of “spiflicated pork,” as Tom Jerrold called it.
“Dick, Dick, what do you think of it all?” said I, chirping to the starling, who was whistling wide awake when I turned out next morning at “eight bells” after dreaming of the poor murdered pigs, on my way to the galley to get some hot coffee. “What do you think of it all—eh, Dick?”
“Tip us your flipper!” hoarsely croaked the bright-eyed little bird with the voice of Tim Rooney, only seeming to be a very long way off. He also seemed to have the nose of Captain Gillespie, which we all said his long beak strongly resembled. “Tip us your flipper!”
That was all I could get out of him; but I thought that, really, a wrong had been righted, and the captain’s marmalade imposition on us and on the hands forward been amply avenged.
Poor “Old Jock’s” live stock of late appeared to be in a very bad way; for, not only was he deprived of his favourite pigs so unfortunately, but since we had begun to run more to southward after leaving the Line, his supply of eggs from the collection of hens he had in the coops on the poop daily dwindled down to nothing, although they had previously been good layers.
Somehow or other the fowls seemed to have the pip, while the three cocks, one a splendid silver and gold fellow, who lorded over the harem of Dorkings and Brahmas, all looked torn and bedraggled as if they had given way to dissipated habits. Besides this, they took to crowing defiance against each other at the most unearthly hours, whereas, prior to this, their time for chanticleering had been as regular as clock-work, in the afternoon and in the “middle watch” generally.
Captain Gillespie couldn’t make it out at all.
One fine morning, however, coming on the deck through the cuddy doors below the break of the poop instead of mounting up to the latter by the companion way as usual, before the time for washing down, he surprised a number of the men assembled about the cook’s galley.
There was Ching Wang in the centre of the group, holding Captain Gillespie’s pet gold and silver crower and urging it on to fight one of the other cocks, which the carpenter was officiating for as “bottle holder” in the most scientific way, he apparently being no novice at the cruel sport.
The captain did not see what they were about at first; but the delinquent was soon pointed out by Pedro Carvalho, between whom and the Chinaman the most deadly enmity existed, and who had indeed already informed the captain of the cook’s treatment of his fowls, the Portuguese steward doing this with much alacrity, as if proud of being the informer.
“Look dere, sah!” cried Pedro. “Dere is dat Ching Wang now, sah! Oh, yase, dere he was, sah, as I say, killin’ your cockles magnificent—oh!”
The captain’s appearance at once broke up the ring, the carpenter dropping his bird incontinently and fleeing into the forecastle with the other men; but, the Chinaman never moved a muscle of his countenance when he turned his round innocent-looking, vacuous, Mongolian face and caught sight of “Old Jock’s” infuriated look bent on him.
He did not even let go the gold and silver cock, whose plumage had been sadly tarnished by a previous tournament with the Dorking which the carpenter had squired. No, he held his ground there before the galley with a courage one could not but admire, the only sign he gave of an inward emotion being the occasional twinkling of his little beady Chinese eyes.
“Wh–wha–what the dicken’s d–d–d’ye mean by this?” stuttered and stammered Captain Gillespie, his passion almost stopping his speech. “Wh–wh–what d’ye mean, I say?”
“Me only hab piecee cocky-fightee,” answered Ching Wang as calmly as possible. “Me chin chin you, cap’en.”
Captain Gillespie fairly boiled over with rage.
“This beats cock-fighting!” he cried, stating the case inadvertently in his exclamation. “I thought it was those confounded cats we have aboard the ship that ill-treated the poor fowls and prevented them from laying me any eggs, till Pedro here told me it was you, though I didn’t believe it. I wouldn’t have believed it now if I hadn’t seen you at it. By jingo, it’s shameful!”
Ching Wang, however, paid no attention to this violent tirade, only salaaming humbly and looking the very picture of meekness and contrition.
But his eyes, as I could see, being close by, having been attracted by the row as most of us were, had altered their expression, now flashing with a peculiar glare as the Chinaman, with a more abject bow than before to the captain, asked him deferentially:
“And dis one manee you tellee Ching Wang cocky-fightee one piecee—hi?”
“Yes, Pedro told me,” replied Captain Gillespie, sniffing and snorting out the words. “And a good job too; for, else, I wouldn’t have known of your goings on!”
Ching Wang’s yellow face almost turned white with anger.
“Hi, blackee-brownee manee,” he yelled, springing upon Pedro like a tiger. “You takee dat number one, chop chop!”