Story 2—Chapter III.
Friends in Council.
The Muscadine when she left England had a crew of some twenty hands, or with the captain, and first and second mates, and our friends Tom and Charley, twenty-five men altogether—a very fair average, as the proportion of the seamen usually borne in merchant ships is at the rate of about three to every hundred tons of the vessel’s burthen.
Through the illness, however, of the fust officer, Mr Wilson, an amiable man and a thorough sailor, whom everybody liked—quite the reverse of the odious Tompkins, Tom’s and Charley’s special bête-noir—and a large number of the seamen, whom they were forced to leave behind in hospital at Beyrout, the complement of the ship was much reduced, and her crew now mustered, officers and men, but twenty in number, of which total twelve were Englishmen who had originally belonged to her, and eight the Greeks whom the captain had so suddenly shipped at the last moment.
“It’s a good job that Cap’en Harding didn’t get any more of those blessed Greeks aboard: they’re almost equal to us now, man for man,” said Tom to Charley, who on this first night of their being at sea after so long a detention in port was performing an act of not altogether disinterested friendship in sharing the first watch on deck of the newly-promoted “second mate,” as he would persist in addressing Tom.
“Yes, sir; I think you are about right, sir,” replied Charley, with a mock deference, which made Tom grin in spite of his endeavours to preserve a dignified composure. “Is there anything else, sir, you’d like me to say, sir?”
“Only, that I’ll kick you in the lee scuppers if you call me ‘sir’ again. But, Charley, joking aside, I don’t like us having all those Greeks here, and we so short-handed too.”
“Don’t you see that that is the precise reason why they are here, most sapient of second officers? if we hadn’t been short-handed the cap’en wouldn’t have shipped them.”
“Yes, yes, I know that,” replied the other shortly. “You don’t seem to follow me, Charley, really. What I meant to point out was, that there are only twelve of us belonging to the ship on whom we could rely—indeed only eleven, for that matter, as I don’t count on Tompkins; a bully like him would be sure to show the white-feather in a scrimmage—while these Greek chaps muster eight strong, all of them pretty biggish men, too, and all armed with them beastly long knives of theirs, which I’ve no doubt they know how to use.”
“Bless you, Tom, Cap’en Harding would be a match for half-a-dozen of them with his revolver; and you and I would be able to master the other two, without calling for aid on any of the foremast hands, or relying on your chum Tompkins. How fond you’re of him, Tom!”
“Hang Tompkins, and you too, Charley! You can’t be serious for a moment!”
“Oh yes I can, Tom; and I will be, now! I tell you what, old chap, your sudden promotion has disagreed with you, and you are trying to manufacture a mountain out of a molehill. Those Greeks are not such fools to attack us unless they gained over the rest of the crew on their side; and you know that’s impossible; for every Englishman forward now in the foc’s’le I’d stake my life on; and so would you, Tom, as they’ve shipped with old Harding every voyage he has sailed since he’s been captain of the craft. You’ve got a fit of the blue-devils or something, Tom, that makes you so unlike yourself; or else that blessed old Turk’s nonsense made a deeper impression on you than it has on me!”
“You’re right, Charley,” said Tom Aldridge, giving himself a shake as if to dispel his strange forebodings. “I don’t know what has come over me to-night. Of course, if those beggars should rise, we could whop them easily enough. To tell you the truth, I shouldn’t mind if they did, if Tompkins only got a knock on the head in the fight!”
“Bravo, Tom! that’s more like yourself! But isn’t your watch nearly over? It must be six bells by now; the moon is getting up.”
“So it is, Charley I wish you would call that beast for me; it’s time he was on deck.”
“All right!” shouted the other with a laugh, scuttling down, and hammering at the first mate’s cabin-door, so loudly that Tom could hear him plainly above, and also Mr Tompkins’ deeply growled oaths in response to the summons, after it was repeated once more with all the strength of the middy’s fists beating a tattoo.
“He’ll be here in a minute,” said Charley, as he hurried up the companion in advance of the gentleman he had called to relieve Tom’s watch; although Tompkins came pretty close behind him, swearing still, and glaring at the two young fellows in the moonlight as if he could “eat them without salt,” as Charley said.
Before going below, Tom gave the first mate the ship’s course, as was customary, “nor’-west and by north,” reporting also that all was right and nothing in sight, no vessel had passed them during the night; and then he and Charley turned into their bunks, with the expectation of having a better “caulk” than they had had all the time the Muscadine had lain at anchor in Beyrout Roads, for while there, the heat and lassitude produced by their having almost nothing to do had so banished sleep that they hardly cared when the time came for their “watch below.” Now, however, it was all different; as what with the bustle of preparation in storing the last of their cargo, and seeing to those endless little matters which had to be put in ship-shape manner before the anchor was weighed, and the actual departure itself, their time had been fully occupied nearly from dawn to sundown, and their feet and hands busy enough in running about on deck and aloft, directing the crew under the captain’s orders, and lending assistance where wanted. So it was with the comfortable assurance of having earned their four hours’ rest that they went below that first night at sea.
“I guess old Tompkins will have to rap pretty loud to make me budge at eight bells,” said Tom with a portentous yawn, as he peeled off his reefing jacket and turned in “all standing,” as he expressed it, with the exception of his boots. He was too tired to undress; and besides, he thought, in his lazy way, what was the use of his doing so when he would have to turn out again and relieve the first mate at four o’clock in the morning, just as he was beginning to enjoy himself.
“By George, a sailor’s life is a dog’s life!” he muttered out aloud.
“What, eh?” sleepily murmured Charley from the other bunk adjacent, the two occupying one cabin between them; and, presently, the pair were “wrapped in the arms of Morpheus,” and snoring like troopers in concert, the captain playing a nasal obligato from his state-room in the distance, whither he had retired a short time before themselves, after being satisfied that the ship was proceeding well on her course and everything all right.
And all this time the Muscadine was bowling so favourably along at the rate of some eight knots an hour, carrying with her the fair wind with which she had started from port, the felucca that had left the Syrian coast shortly after still followed in her track, although hull-down on the horizon, and her white lateen sails only just dimly discernible to a sharp eye that was looking out for her, under the rays of the rising moon, which now emerged from the waste of water that surrounded the two vessels with its fathomless expanse. But who on board the merchant ship suspected that they were pursued or looked out for the felucca, dead astern as she was, and only a tiny speck on the ocean?