"Begobs, and I don't know, sir."
I went forward to see the strange visitor who seemed to be causing Riley so much misery. There, under the forecastle head, the Hindoo lay, wrapped in his blankets, sound asleep.
"Riley," said I, "you drank too much Scotch last night; be careful that you don't get the Jimmies and jump overboard. If you feel yourself slipping just tie a gasket around you. We need you to work ship on the voyage home."
These insults were too much for Riley. He slunk away to the lookout where Broken-Nosed Pete would lend a willing ear to his story of the Hindoo and his abuse of me.
At one o'clock, feeling sure of the reefs, I changed the course to N. N. W.
The next morning the Hindoo was eating his breakfast off the forehatch and looking much better than he had on the preceding evening. He rose and thanked me kindly for the interest we had taken in him, saying:
"I feel the pleasure of liberty after my prison term, among those terrible people. As for last night, I was quite comfortable. I can easily adapt myself to the new environment. But although I could not quite understand what the one-eyed man meant when he bent over me in the night, exclaiming, 'There he is, and the divil a move out of him,' I feel nevertheless, that I am in the midst of friends, and I shall do my best to entertain their friendship."
These quaint expressions were pleasing to me, and I continued the conversation. He said that he had had no sea experience. That while going from Bombay to the Fiji Islands he was battened down in the hold with the rest of the coolie labor, and only allowed to walk the deck a short time in the evenings. He was anxious to work and help in any way that he could. The second mate put him to work scrubbing paint-work. There is always plenty of this kind of work to be done on every ship. The Hindoo went to work with a will, as if glad to have the opportunity.
For the next four days the southeast trades held fair, until we were well to the northward of the Fiji group. I was hoping to get east of the 180th meridian before crossing the Equator, This would give me a better slant before I struck the northeast trades. Then in latitude about 30° north we would encounter the westerly winds, which would be fair for the Pacific coast.
I was well pleased with the progress we had made since we left Suva, and I anticipated making a sailing record from the Fijis to San Francisco.