The old whaleman glanced aloft and then astern. “Reckon ’bout ten knots,” he replied.
“And a sub can make over twenty,” laughed Jim. “I hope we don’t see one.”
“Wall, o’ course I ’spose they could cotch us,” admitted old Pem, “but I’ll be blowed if I don’t wisht I’d tried a bomb lance on that there chap back there. Bet I could a-fetched him! Reckon them boats ain’t no tougher than a bull sparm whale.”
“Next time we see one we’ll ask Captain Edwards to lower a boat and let you tackle it with an iron and a lance,” laughed Tom, “but I’ll bet you won’t get a boat’s crew to go with you.”
“Jes’ the same,” argued the old whaleman, “ye got ter admit I saved the ship. Ef I hadn’t a killed that there whale an’ got him ’longside where’d we been, eh?”
Captain Edwards, who had approached unseen, laughed. “I expect one-legged Mike would claim he saved us,” he remarked. “At any rate, he showed the stuff that’s in him and that he can handle men. I’m going to make him bo’sun.”
Cap’n Pem scratched his head. “Derned if I ever heard tell o’ a one-legged bo’sun,” he declared. “Jes’ the same, I never heard tell o’ a peg-legged mate afore, neither. Reckon ye might as well keep it up. Sort o’ got the habit I reckon.”
Day after day, the wind held steady and the bark tore on under full sail with never a hand laid to sheet, brace or tackle, and day after day, the drilling of the men continued, until it seemed to the boys that there could be nothing more for them to learn. They had been taught the running and standing rigging; they had been forced aloft until all but one or two could straddle the royal yards or cling to the swaying, heaving footropes “with their toe nails” as Mr. Kemp put it; and when all this had been mastered, they were kept busy at splicing, making chafing-gear, serving and parcelling, taring down and a thousand and one other jobs on deck. And in this work, the wooden-legged bo’sun, Mike, proved himself invaluable. For while he could not go aloft, yet, he seemed to know everything else about a ship even better than old Pem himself. Then one day, the truth came out, and while talking with the boys, for whom he had developed a great fondness, he divulged the fact that for many years he had served in the navy, and that he had lost his leg in the battle of Manila on Admiral Dewey’s flagship.
“Knowed he was a sailor man all the time,” declared Cap’n Pem when the boys told him the news. “Couldn’t fool me! Jes’ as soon’s I seed him grab a han’ spike, I knowed it.”
“Well, what’s dumb Pete?” laughed Jim, “and one-eyed Ned? I suppose you’ll say you knew they were sailors, too!”