“We’ve got a ship for ye,” says shipowner Donald, as the wine is being passed. “Ye’re to be Captain.”
“Captain!” repeats first mate Jack Paul. “A ship for me?”
“Who else, then!” returns shipowner Donald. “Ay! it’s the Crantully Castle, four hundred tons, out o’ Plymouth for Bombay. Ye’re to be Captain; besides, ye’re to have a tenth in the cargo. And now if that suits ye, gentlemen”—addressing shipowners Currie & Beck—“let the firm of Donald, Currie & Beck fill up the glasses to the Crantully Castle and its new Captain, Jack Paul.”
CHAPTER IV—THE KILLING OF MUNGO
Captain Jack Paul and his Grantully Castle see friendly years together. They go to India, to Spain, to the West Indies, to the Mediterranean, to Africa. While Captain Jack Paul is busy with the Grantully Castle, piling up pounds and shillings and pence for owners Donald, Currie & Beck, he is also deep with the books, hammering at French, Spanish and German. Ashore, he makes his way into what best society he can find, being as eager to refine his manners as refine his mind, holding the one as much an education as is the other. Finally he is known in every ocean for the profundity of his learning, the polish of his deportment, the power of his fists, and the powder-like explosiveness of his temper.
It is a cloudy October afternoon when Captain Jack Paul works the Grantully Castle out of Plymouth, shakes free his canvas, and fills away on the starboard tack for Tobago. The crew is an evil lot, and a spirit of mutiny stirs in the ship. Captain Jack Paul, who holds that a good sailor is ever a good grumbler, can overlook a deal in favor of this aphorism; and does. On the sixth day out, however, when his first officer, Mr. Sands, staggers below with a sheath-knife through his shoulder, it makes a case to which no commander can afford to seem blind.
“It was Mungo!” explains the wounded Mr. Sands.
Captain Jack Paul goes on deck, and takes his stand by the main mast.