"Glad to hear about the appetite, because breakfast is ready," grinned the skipper, casting a comprehensive glance around his ship before leading the way below. "Better slick up a bit, though, before going to table, Little. A piratical atmosphere's all right in its place, but I'll feel as if I ought to pack a pistol or two if I sit down to eat with a tough looking specimen like you."
The chief mate ate at the first table that morning, and Barry took the opportunity to make himself familiar with some general details of the ship's company. The brigantine was a relic of an ancient period of shipbuilding, and her main cabin fitted her excellently. Dark, full of deep recesses in which great square windows opened to the ocean's free breezes; cosy with an old-world cosiness; picturesque with spacious skylight dome, in which swung a mahogany rack full of tinkling glasses and ruby and amber decanters; full of weird, whispering voices of aged bulkheads and cheeping frames. Such was the cabin. And the chief mate fitted the cabin as that apartment fitted the ship.
Square as one of the stern ports, his face tanned and grained to the semblance of a piece of the skylight mahogany; honest as the timber that went into the building of the ship, Jerry Rolfe attempted no bluff, either in his table manners or his professional duties. As he ate, his shoulders swung to the heave of his arms, attacking the food on his plate as an enemy to be downed catch-as-catch-can style, no holds barred. Little stared in amazement at first. He shot a quizzical glance at Barry when the mate absorbed a cupful of scalding coffee with one gurgling, sucking swallow. But Barry expected only sailorly qualities and loyalty from his officers; on the first count he was satisfied with Rolfe, and his doubts were few on the second. He inquired now about the other member of the afterguard,—the burly Hollander who had superintended the washing-down.
"Hendrik Vandersee 's his name; bo'sun, acting second mate's his rating," replied the mate in a plain, official tone. "Dunno anything about him, sir, only that Mr. Houten sent him aboard and said he's been highly recommended by somebody as knowing more about the place we're bound for than any other man in the East."
"Well, what d' you think of him? Good second mate, eh?"
"Oh, Barry," Little broke in exuberantly, "he's the jolliest fat sailor that ever swabbed a deck. Why, he told me I was a whale of a shellback, and he's going to teach me...."
"This is business, Little," Barry interrupted, with a trace of irritation. "Come, Mr. Rolfe; if you've finished your breakfast, you can relieve Vandersee for his. We can talk as well on deck."
The second mate was relieved and went below. Barry examined him casually as he passed, and again he was conscious of that same feeling that had swept through him earlier in the morning. Again there was that vague suggestion of a steel trap covered with velvet, or kidskin. Not to any one feature, either, could this suggestion be traced; the man's ruddy face was open and bland, his eyes sparkled like gems, his bearing was that of a man who owes no man, either in money or favor.
Barry felt faintly angry with himself for harboring fancies and turned back to the chief mate.
"I asked what opinion you had formed of the second mate, Mr. Rolfe," he said, joining the other on the weather side of the poop.