"My stomach is better. We finish der chicken, ja?"
CHAPTER IX
THE ISLAND
One day was like another aboard the Royal James, although to a landsman the routine of duties, work and varying weather was charged with unending interest. My great-uncle held his pack of wolves on a short leash and exacted from them all the efficiency of a man-o'-war's company. Indeed, he rather fancied himself in the status of admiral upon a private establishment, and occasionally indulged in visions of the James gazetted to the roster of the royal fleet and himself flying a broad pennant in a line-ship at the head of a squadron.
"His Majesty could scarce make me Lord Admiral, Robert," he would say, pacing the poop with hands clasped behind him and spyglass tucked beneath his left arm. "I am one for maintaining the rights of tradition, and the Howards have an inalienable claim to the place. But a regular commission—that would be vastly different. Admiral of the White, let us say—or if that grade be filled, perhaps of the Red. I understand there to be considerable jealousy amongst the sea-dogs of the Navy over the rankings on the White, and I am a reasonable man. Military or naval fitness must never be sacrificed to political ends. 'Tis a canker will wreck the most powerful State in time."
Each morning he inspected the ship from stem to stern, accompanied by his officers, and he was not slow to administer rebukes for shortcomings or oversights. Later in the forenoon the men were exercised at the great guns, and in the afternoon there was pike and cutlass drill. The watch was rigorously maintained. We carried lookouts day and night at all three mast-heads and on poop and fo'csle, and every one of them was equipped with an observation glass. The handling of the sails was astonishingly smart to me, who, of course, had had no previous experience to go by.
The cleanliness of the decks and living-quarters was beyond any peradventure of criticism. Even the men of the crew—as choice a collection of hangman's favorites, jail-breakers, road-wanderers, hedge-thieves, pickpockets, murderers and mutineers as could have been mustered upon one deck—were kept personally tidy and clothed with a rough similarity in wide trousers of tough canvas, gaudy shirts of calico and round-jackets of Irish frieze.
There was plenty of food, and of far better quality than is served on King's ships, as I have since learned, and enough rum to keep all hands in good humor without being drunk. None of this broaching a cask on the spar-deck according to Flint's habit, but a full pannikin three times a day. And in tropical waters, so Master Martin told me, Murray was at great pains to keep the ship stocked with fresh fruit to prevent the scurvy and the wasting fevers of the hot latitudes.
The officers lodged for'ard of the cabin in what answered, I suppose, for a gun-room. Murray had the poop quarters to himself, with only Peter and me for company, aside from Ben Gunn and the two negro lackeys, who were more for show than aught else, seeing that the steward did practically all the work.
With our accommodations I could find no cause for quarrel. My great-uncle had promised me I should fare like an admiral, and certes, like an admiral or a princeling did I fare. There was a stateroom each for Peter and me, and whilst constricted in space by shore standards, they were spacious beside the cubby-hole we had shared aboard the brig.