“He says that, does he?” cried the sailor. “Then you had best jump over the side while you’ve got the chance. He’s going to haze you, is he? That means that he won’t let you have a minute’s peace as long as this voyage lasts, and that you won’t get a wink of sleep more than just enough to keep you alive. I pity you, my boy.”
Guy thought he stood in need of sympathy. He knew that there were hard times before him, but he had never dreamed of anything so dreadful as this.
CHAPTER XVI.
STILL ANOTHER.
FLINT looked at the boy for a moment with an expression of great concern on his haggard face, and continued:
“I was in a ship once when the whole crew was hazed, and I wouldn’t go through it again for no money. It was awful.”
“But why did you submit to it?” asked Guy, in surprise. “Were there not enough of you to whip the officers?”
“Yes, but that would have been mutiny; and if we had tried it we would have been shot down like dogs. There’s no way out of the scrape, Jack, unless you go overboard. You’re held as tight as if you were in jail.”
“But I haven’t yet told you all,” said Guy, who seemed to find a gloomy satisfaction in talking about his troubles. “The first mate is an enemy of mine, too. You remember, do you not, that when you had the fight at the boarding-house I ran out? Well, I went to the dock, and there I found a man who was being robbed. I saved him by calling the police, and through me one of the robbers was captured. I was taken to the watch-house and locked up until the next morning, when I appeared as a witness against the prisoner; and who do you suppose he turned out to be? I was never more astonished in my life. Don’t say a word about it, Flint, for he threatens to kill me if I lisp it, but it was our first mate. He says he is going to make me think this ship is a frying-pan.”