“I means the chaps you ’as in the ’ammocks. Listen, sir. There’s no deceivin’ Jim Durdley. We’ve got the plague aboard! I’ve been shipmate with she afore to-day.”
Halcott staggered as if shot.
“Heaven forbid!” he exclaimed.
No one on board cared much for this man Durdley. Nor is this to be wondered at. In his own mess he was quarrelsome to a degree. Poor little Fitz fled when he came near him, and many a brutal blow he received, which at times caused fierce fights, for every one fore and aft loved the nigger boy.
Durdley was almost always boding ill. His only friends were the foreigners of the crew, men that to make a complement of five-and-twenty Tandy had hired in a hurry.
Mostly Finns they were, and bad at that, and if there was ever any grumbling to be done on board the Sea Flower these were the fellows to begin it.
Halcott recovered himself quickly, gave just one glance at Durdley’s dark, forbidding countenance—the man was really ugly enough to stop a church clock—and went below.
He met Tandy at the saloon door, and told him his worst fears.
Alas! these fears were fated to be realised all too soon.
The men now stricken down were those who had boarded the derelict with Halcott. One died next evening, and was lashed in his hammock and dropped over the bows a few hours afterwards.