"I don't know. Guess they are married again, leastways the one in London is. She was no good. Thought I was a rich bushman and wanted to get in on the wad. But the wife in Melbourne was decent. I should have stuck; that was when I was in the milk business." Australia paused. "I hope she sold that for a decent figure. You see she was expecting something, and—oh, rats—what am I saying——"
"Weather main brace!" sang out the mate, and in a moment we were tailing to the rope, and Fred and Black Joe were wailing in the night as we swigged at it. The watch was nearly over and Mr. Zerk was working the sleep out of us. As for me, I was wide awake. Australia never mentioned his story again, except to say in an offhand way that it was all a lie about being married twice. "I just wanted to see how far I could go with you," he said.
Australia was a wiry chap of medium size, full of life and a distinct ornament to the fo'c'sle. He was never at a loss for a witty retort and his sallies at the expense of the mate—during the watch below of course—furnished endless amusement. He always shaved in port except for a diminutive mustache, but at sea he sported a growth of beard, merely trimming this with a large pair of scissors such as tailors use for cutting heavy cloth, a murderous weapon that he carried in a canvas sheath nailed to the inside cover of his sea chest.
Unlike sailors on shorter runs, and that hybrid animal, the deckhand in steam, the sailor on board a deepwater ship has a sense of home. He occupies the same bunk for a year or more at a time, and in spite of the way he is robbed, or perhaps I should say, was robbed, he carried a small accumulation of household goods, things that the crimps and boarding masters did not consider worth while stealing. Every bunk in a measure reflected the personal taste of the owner.
Australia was one of the few men on board the Fuller who owned a mirror. When he wanted to nail this up under the lamp in the fo'c'sle, there was a storm of protest, and the damning implement of an effete civilization was again restored to his chest. A mirror was only permissible on rare occasions when a man shaved; otherwise it was taboo.
CHAPTER XXIX
[STORMY DAYS]
"Diego Ramirez ahead, a point on the port bow!" This was the news that greeted us as we turned out on the morning of July 17th, 1898. It was Sunday, cloudy, but clear, one of the first days without snow or hail since the fourth of July. Off to the E. S. E. was a sail and by the long time it took us to raise her we knew she too was a homeward bounder.