Jem is hungry.
The first time the pressed men were mustered Don was well prepared.
“You leave it to me, Jem,” he whispered. “I’ll wait till our turn comes, and then I shall speak out to the officer and tell him how we’ve been treated.”
“You’d better make haste, then, Mas’ Don, for if the thing keeps on moving like this, I sha’n’t be able to stand and hear what you have to say.”
For a good breeze was blowing from the south coast, sufficient to make the waves curl over, and the sloop behave in rather a lively way; the more so that she had a good deal of canvas spread, and heeled over and dipped her nose sufficiently to admit a great wave from time to time to well splash the forward part of the deck.
Don made no reply, for he felt white, but he attributed it to the mental excitement from which he suffered.
There were thirty pressed men on deck, for the most part old sailors from the mercantile marine, and these men were drafted off into various watches, the trouble to the officers being that of arranging the fate of the landsmen, who looked wretched in the extreme.
“’Pon my word, Jones,” said a smart-looking, middle-aged man in uniform, whom Don took to be the first lieutenant, “about as sorry a lot of Bristol sweepings as ever I saw.”
“Not bad men, sir,” said the petty officer addressed. “Wait till they’ve shaken down into their places.”
“Now’s your time, Mas’ Don,” whispered Jem. “Now or never.”