“He surely knows his business and handles the ship with the ease a Chinaman does his chopsticks, but he’s the surliest, most silent skipper I ever sailed with. You told us, Mr. Brice, when you came aboard that he was the jolliest; was he like this when you were with him on the ‘Lucy’?” said the second mate inquiringly.
“No, he wasn’t!” mumbled old Brice in answer.
“Somethin’ went wrong with him ashore,” adding angrily as he turned and glared at his young companion:
“But ’tis none of your blamed business or mine neither what’s up with the skipper; you didn’t ship for society, did you?”
“That’s right enough, Mr. Brice, but I tell you what ’tis, the men think the captain a little out of trim in the sky-sail. They say he walks about ship at night like a ghost and does queer things. Second day of the storm, the twentieth, in the evening, while it was blowing great guns and ship pitching like she’d stick her nose under forever, I was standin’ by to help Collins at the wheel; we see the skipper come staggering along aft balancing himself careful as a rope walker an a holdin’ a glass of wine in his hand. When he gets to the rail at the stern he holds up high the glass and talks to wind, Davy Jones or somethin’, drinks the wine and hurls the glass to hell and gone into the sea. How’s that, mate? Collins looks at me and shakes his head, and I feels creepy myself.”
For a minute Brice, with red and angry eyes, stared at the second mate, then he burst out in a roar:
“I’ll knock the head off ’er Collins, and marlin spike the rest ’er the bloomin’ sea lawyers in the for’castle if I catch them talkin’ erbout the skipper, and I tell you, Mr. Second Mate, you keep your mouth well shut or you’ll get such ’er keel haulin’ you won’t fergit. Captain Dunlap is no man to projec’k with and he’s mighty rough in er shindy.”
With that closing admonition the first officer turned and climbed the reeling stairs that led to the deck. As he emerged from the companion-way a great wave struck the side of ship heeling her over and hurling the mate against the man who had formed the topic of discussion in the cabin below.
The skipper was wet to the skin; he had thrown aside his oil-skins to enable him to move more nimbly, his face was worn, drawn and almost of leaden hue. Deep lines and the dark circles around his eyes told a story of loss of sleep, fatigue and anxiety. How much of this was due to an aching pain in the heart only Him to whom all things are revealed could know.