This old whaler had none too good a reputation, even among her kind; but this was chiefly because of her officers. Manuel Mendez, the black Cape Verde mate, was a strapping big man with a thin eagle-like profile exactly like that of the mummy of Rameses—a great hooked nose, and air of gentle refinement, and delicate lips. Manuel Mendez played the flute beautifully and was said to be a killer of men.
The second officer was an old man, forty years a whaler. Mr. Leman wore a fringe of white hair and whisker, stood six feet two and was muscled like a bull moose; they said he had been known to take a man's arm in his two hands and break it like a rotten stick. His face was heavy and flat, the eyes small and bright and deeply set. His nose had been crushed and had a crooked twist
One of the boat-steerers, Ericksen, was gone from the ship. The other, like the mate, was a Cape Verde man; his name was a Portuguese one, but he was called Corny. The brigantine had no cooper, for a wonder; her cook, like Ericksen, was absent.
The steward was a vicious little Cockney pickpocket who wanted to get out of Canada before the draught caught him; the cabin-boy was a green farmer-lad named Jerry, a moon-faced boy who had run off the farm a month previously. There was no one else aft.
In the forecastle were fifteen men. Ten of these were Kanakas—merry brown men who spoke their own guttural tongue and some broken English, and like all of their kind were noble seamen. The other five were broken-down white men, scum of the city, who were kept drunk and under hatches until the Pelican should get to sea.
The ship was pervaded by a restless air—that is, in the after cabins. Up forward the Kanakas sang and worked light-heartedly, and the five bums snored in drunken repose. But aft all was different. Restrained excitement, an air of suspense, much whispering and wild speculating; thus the atmosphere seemed electrically charged.
Everyone knew that there was an invalid down below—a man in a wheeled chair, a man who could not speak a single word or move a finger. Jerry affirmed he could eat, and could use his ears, but little more, as his eyes also were somewhat affected. Then, the skipper's wife was aboard for the cruise; and when she came to the deck, men smartened up—not because they loved her, but because they feared and hated her. She was known to all aboard as the Missus—that was her title.
It was five in the afternoon. Two bells had just been struck on the brass ship's bell abaft the mizzenmast when the Missus appeared on the quarter-deck. Sea-watches had been set, and Mr. Leman had the deck, Mrs. Pontifex was a strapping big woman with iron-grey hair and a jaw like rock; her unchanging expression was indomitable and not too sweet.
"No sign of that boat, Mr. Leman?" she demanded in a raucous voice which held a distinct Yankee twang.
"No, ma'am," meekly responded the second officer. "Train must ha' been late. Them trains often is, I'm told."