Across the salt sea we do go, boys,
To the Sues and the Prues on the shore,
Where he hath no wife may find one,
And he who hath one may have more.’
‘Excellent, upon my reputation!’ shouted the highwayman; ‘Sedley could not have made better, nor Tom D’Urfey either. Well did I know both.’
‘Sedley! Tom D’Urfey!—who be they?’ roared the drunken mate. ‘That song was made of a rare merry night, carousing in a burnt house of Maracaibo, when the place was taken under stout l’Olonnais and Michael le Basque. Here, more brandy; fill up, comrades. On your feet—your feet! He who standeth not, saving only he be dead drunk, will I cut down with my hanger. On your feet, I say, and do reason to a pledge. Here’s to our next carouse on the Isles des Aves—on the wines that come from Ferrol in old Spain. Huzza!’
And the sots upon the floor, staggering to their feet, waved lanterns and flagons, and shouted and yelled with drunken voices—‘To our next carouse in the Isles des Aves.’
‘Drink—drink, all of you—the liquor is free; it costs nothing,’ Jerry continued, staggering as he rose from his seat; ‘drink, I say, or I’ll cram an empty bottle down the gullet of every man that’s sober.’ And, with a drunken hiccup, he seized a lantern, and, waving it round his head, flung it to the other end of the cabin.
The revellers shouted a furious chorus of applause.
Meantime, the watch on deck, hearing the tumult, began to flock below, when their comrades seized them, and, with maudlin caresses, held up to them cups of drink, which they, nothing loath, swallowed greedily down. All discipline seemed over and gone, for not a soul was left upon the deck to tend the sails, to conn, or to steer.