It is astonishing what effect those gentle breezes had upon our spirits. I found myself whistling and going to the galley to ask the cook what there was for dinner, and I found him singing, and polishing away at his tins, his galley all neat and clean, and the dinner well in progress.
“Well, mutineer,” I said; “anything good to-day?”
“Oh, I do call that unkind, Mr Dale, sir, and it isn’t true. Didn’t I show you as soon as I could that I wasn’t one of that sort?”
“Well, yes, you sneaked back when you thought your side was going to be beaten.”
He looked at me fiercely, but smiled the next moment.
“Plain Irish stoo to-day, sir, made out of Noo Zealand mutton, for I found the onions. There’s plenty of ’em. You don’t mean what you said, sir. Just you have a pistol stuck in one of your ears, and be told that you’re not to be a cook and a slave any more, but to join the adventurers who are going to live in a beautiful island of their own, where it’s always fine weather, and if you don’t you’re to be shot. Why, of course I joined ’em, same as lots more did. Any fellow would rather live in a beautiful island than have his brains blown out.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said shortly. “I wouldn’t on Jarette’s terms.”
“No, sir, you wouldn’t,” said the cook; “but Mr Walters would.”
As he spoke he lifted the lid off one of his pots, and gave the contents a stir round.
“Smell that, sir? There’s nothing on Jarette’s island as’ll come up to that. But, between ourselves, I don’t believe he knows of any island at all such as he talked about to the men, till he’d gammoned them or bullied them over. Hah!” he continued, tasting his cookery; “wants a dash more pepper and a twist of salt, and then that stuff’s strong enough to do the skipper and Mr Denning more good than all the doctor’s stuff. Young Walters, too; he’s very bad, isn’t he?”