“Old man will never take you without papers.”
The carpenter, who liked the look of his new mate, intervened. “Leave that, Bradley. Cap’n will listen to me, if not to you. Seeing this man ships in such a hell of a hurry, ’twill be all right. Then, if he’s the proper sort, old man will soon forget.”
“You can pretend I’m a stowaway an’ not find me till we’re out to sea,” suggested Daniel.
“No need, no need; ’twill be all right,” answered the other.
Time proved that the carpenter of the Peabody was correct. His injured mate did not reappear, and in the hurry of sailing no questions were asked. That night, in a weak ship rolling gunwales under, Sweetland made acquaintance with the ailment he had never known, and Mr Bradley, who found him under the light of an oil lamp in an alley-way, regarded the prostrate wreck of Daniel with gloomy triumph.
“I told you as this ship would twist your innards about a bit. I’m awful bad myself. Drink a pint of sea-water; ’tis the only thing to do. If it don’t kill you, it cures you.”
The landsman grunted inarticulately. He was thinking that to perish ashore, even with infamy, would be better than the dreadful death that now prepared to overtake him.
But after twenty-four hours the Peabody was ship-shape and panting solidly along on an even keel. Daniel quickly recovered, and what he lacked in knowledge he made up in power to learn and power to please. Chips, of course, discovered that his new mate was no carpenter, and Bradley also perceived that Daniel had never been to sea before. But your land-lubber, if he be made of the right stuff, will often get on with a ship’s company better than a seasoned salt. Sweetland was unselfish, hard-working, and civil. The men liked him, and the captain liked him. He prospered and kept his own dark cares hidden.
To detail at length the life on shipboard is not necessary, since no events of importance occurred to be chronicled, and within a few weeks of sailing, accident withdrew Sweetland from the Peabody for ever. The usual experience befell him; the wonders of the deep revealed themselves to him for the first time; but only one thing that the sea gave up interested Sweetland, and that chanced to be an English newspaper. It happened thus. When off the Azores on the Sunday after sailing, a big steamer overhauled the Peabody, went past her as if she was standing still, and in two hours was hull down again on the horizon.
“’Tis the Don,” said Bradley. “One of the Royal Mail boats from Southampton for Barbados and Jamaica.”