He was leading the child away from the companion hatch, when Lestrange reappeared and joined Stanistreet near the wheel. Lestrange glanced at the sailor and his charge but seemed to take little interest in it, or only that benign interest which he seemed, now, to bestow on everything animate and inanimate; it might have been the child of Bowers for all he seemed to care. Stanistreet tried to draw the conversation to it, and the other did not resist, but he let the subject drop as though it was of little account, and then, the steward announcing breakfast, they went below.
CHAPTER IV
DICK EM
Meanwhile the fo’c’sle had got wind of happenings on deck and even the watch that had turned in, turned out. Eight men, all told, schooner men of the old South Sea type, hard-bitten, berry-brown, and, save for their pants, as naked to the hot morning as the “kid.”
The Ranatonga had sailed without a mate; drink and the police combined had seized him the night before she sailed. There was no one of the afterguard on deck to keep order, and the criticism was free.
“Lord save us and love us,” cried one of the ruffians, “look at Bob playin’ nursery-maid!—Where’s your apron, Bob?”
“He’s stole the pore infant’s clothes,” put in another, “and pawned the p’rambulator. Len’s a dollar, Bob, if you haven’t bust it on drink.”
A gentleman peeling a banana offered part of it to the charge and was repulsed.
“Now then, now then,” cried Mr. Bowers, “scatter off an’ clean yourselves—take your damn bananas where they’re wanted! Jim, fetch me that old tin butt tub outa the galley, the one the doctor sticks his ’tatoes in, and there’s an old sponge in the locker behind the door. Grease yourself and then b—r off down and tell Jenkins to send’s a tow’l.”
He filled the bath with sea water dipped up in a bucket, and began the scrubbing and sponging, Jim, a long wall-eyed son of perdition, standing by with the towel, and the others looking on.