“What do you mean, Jennings?” exclaimed Captain Wilmore, roused by the quartermaster’s manner. “More rations and stronger grog than the men want? I don’t understand you.”
“Well, cap’en, I’m afraid some on ’em won’t eat and drink aboard this ship no more.”
“What, are any of them sick, or dead—or, by heaven, have any of them deserted?”
“I’m afeared they has, cap’en. You remember the Yankee trader, as sent a boat to ask us to take some letters to Calcutta?”
“Yes, to be sure; what of him?”
“Well, I’ve heard since, as his crew was going about among our chaps all the time he was aboard, offering of ’em a fist half full of guineas apiece, if they’d sail with him, instead of you.”
“The scoundrel!” shouted Captain Wilmore. “If I’d caught him at it, I’d have run him up to the mainyard, as sure as he’s alive.”
“Ay, cap’en; and I’d have lent a hand with all my heart,” said the old seaman. “But you see he was too cunning to be caught. He went back to his ship, which was lying a very little way off, for there wasn’t a breath of wind, if you remember. But he guessed the breeze would spring up about midnight, so he doesn’t hoist his boats up, but hides ’em under his lee, until—”
“I see it all plain enough, Jennings,” broke in the captain. “How many are gone?”
“Well, we couldn’t make sure for a long time, Captain Wilmore,” said Jennings, still afraid to reveal the whole of his evil tidings. “Some of the hands had got drunk on the rum fetched aboard at Madeira, and they might be lying about somewhere, you see—”