“Horrid pity, messmet.”
“Captain, if you please, Bob Hampton, and your friend if you are faithful. That will do. Now go to the wheel, and send the ship on her voyage south. She is rolling in the trough of the sea.”
“Right!” said Bob. “’Spose, captain, you won’t be so particklar; man may light his pipe while he is at the wheel.”
“Oh yes. Smoke and be comfortable; but you will mind how you steer, for I shall be a hard severe man. You understand, extrèmement severe.”
“Course you will,” said Bob, coolly; “skippers must be. Don’t matter to me, messmate—cap’n, I mean—one skipper’s good as another. But I say, cap’n, there’s Barney Blane and Neb Dumlow knocked on the head in the forksle. They on’y showed fight a-cause they see as I did at first. They’re good mates and true, and ’ll jyne me as they allus have. ‘Wheer you sails,’ say they, ‘we sails.’ So I thought I’d put in a word, as you wants trusty men.”
“I can choose my crew, Bob Hampton,” said the Frenchman, in a peculiar tone of voice. “Too much talk is only good for parrot birds. Go you and steer.”
“Right you are, cap’n,” said Bob, and I heard him go aft, but could not see him till I wrenched my head round, and could then dimly see something in the halo of soft light shed by the lamp on the compass.
And all this time the ship was rolling slowly, with the yards making a strange creaking sound and the sails filling and flapping about with strange flutterings and whimperings; but in a few minutes there was a perceptible change, the ship’s head swinging round, and I knew that we were once more gliding swiftly through the water.
That there was a group of men below me I felt absolutely certain, though I could see nobody; and at last, when I had come to the conclusion that I had reached the extreme limit of my strength, and that I must drop, Jarette spoke suddenly, but in quite a low voice—
“You two stay here by the sky-light, and if any attempt is made to get on deck, shoot at once. If they are killed, their blood be on their own heads. Where’s young Mr Walters?”