“Not on my part, sir, I’ll take my Bible oath,” said he, “What I did I was forced to do to save my own life. Gladly would I have helped the skipper if I could; but what can one man do agin a whole ship’s crew.”
“Much, if he have the will,” replied I. “I will give no pledge whatever, beyond this. Tell me your story, and if I find you were powerless to prevent the evil which I begin to suspect has befallen my poor father, you have nothing to fear; but if I find that you have in any way aided—”
“Never, sir. If I could have had my will the skipper would not be where, I suppose, he is now; but you shall hear all I have to say, and then judge for yourself whether I could prevent anything that happened or no.”
Chapter Six.
The Fate of the “Amazon.”
The man who, in this unexpected manner, brought me intelligence of my father, belonged to the crew of one of the visiting captains’ boats, and a word or two of explanation was sufficient to procure the delay in the boat’s departure necessary to permit the fellow to tell his story.
In order to be a little more alone, Bob (who was, in a few words, made acquainted with the facts of the case), the seaman, and I went down over the side to the Water Lily’s deck, when, as soon as we had comfortably bestowed ourselves, the man thus began:
“You must know, gentlemen, to commence with, that I was shipped, among others, on board the Amazon at Canton. Dysentery was awful bad among the crews just at that time, and no less than seven was ashore from our old barkie bad, when she left. Two chaps run as soon as she got in, and couldn’t be found agin; so there was nine berths in the fo’c’sle to be filled when she was ready to sail. As I was sayin’, I was one of the new hands shipped. Englishmen was scarce somehow just then, and the skipper had to take what he could get. Consequence was, he shipped three Portuguese, a Spaniard, a Greek, two Frenchmen, and a Yankee, besides myself. The third mate was ashore bad, and the second mate had died, so the Yankee (who seemed a smartish sort of chap) was made second mate, and one of the old fo’c’sle men was put into the third mate’s berth. When we got aboard, we found the hatches on, and all ready for a start, and that same a’ternoon we unmoored, and away we went.