“What did I say, mates?” commented Williams, as they slowly brought the canvas into better trim. “This is the ‘old man’s’ work—this swigging away upon sheets and halliards just upon night-fall; and there he is upon the poop looking as black as thunder, because, I suppose, we’re not more lively over the job. And what’s it all for? Why, simply because that young sprig, Ned, happens to sight a sail ahead of us; and because we happen to be a smart ship the skipper won’t be satisfied until we’ve overhauled her. This is just the beginning of it; it’ll be like this every time we happen to see anything ahead; you mark my words.”
“D’ye twig the new helmsman?” laughed another, jerking his head aft to direct attention to Sibylla, who still held the wheel.
“Ay, ay, mate; we see her,” answered Williams, who seemed to think himself called upon to play the part of spokesman. “We see her; and a pretty creature she is. But do you think, mates, she’ll ever give any of us a spell when it’s our trick? Not she! It’s all very well when it’s a smart young sprig of an apprentice—or midshipman, as they call themselves—that she can laugh and talk with; but it’s a different matter with us poor shell-backs. The swells won’t have anything to say to its.”
“Now, you’re wrong there, Josh, old shipmate, as I can testify,” spoke up Jack Simpson, a smart young A.B. “Mrs Henderson and Mrs Gaunt has both spoke to me; and it was only a night or two ago that, when it was my wheel, Mr Gaunt gived me a cigar; and a precious good one it was too, I can tell ye.”
“Ay; and I suppose when he handed it to you he made you feel as if you was a dog that he was giving a bone to; didn’t he?” said Williams.
“No, he didn’t; not by a long ways,” answered Jack. “He looked and spoke like a thorough-bred gentleman; but he was as perlite and civil as ever a man could be.”
“Civil!” grunted Rogers. “Well, I don’t make no account of that; it’s his business to be civil. He’s what they calls a civil engineer; though hang me if I know what an engineer wants aboard of a sailing ship.”
“How come you to know he’s a civil engineer?” demanded another man.
“Because, d’ye see, mate,” replied Rogers, “I was one of the hands as was told off to pass the dunnage up when the passengers came alongside; and I read on one of the boxes ‘Mr William Gaunt, C.E.’ The mate saw it, too; and he says to the skipper, as was standin’ close alongside of him, says he:—
“‘Mr William Gaunt, C.E.’—what does C.E. stand for? And the skipper, he says: ‘What, don’t you know? Why, C.E. stands for Civil Engineer, which is the gentleman’s purfession,’ says he. And that’s how I come to know it, matey.”