There was a momentary pause, then I heard the first lieutenant say:
“With all submission, sir, permit me to say that I believe—nay, that I am convinced—you wholly misunderstand the character and disposition of the crew. Some of them—far too many of them, indeed—are foreigners, who have neither the strength nor the spirit to perform their duties as efficiently as Englishmen would, but I believe that, for the most part, they honestly do their best; and for honest service, faithfully performed, perpetual flogging seems to me but a poor reward. The jail-birds among our own countrymen are the most difficult subjects to deal with, and flogging only hardens them; if I had to deal with them I should be far more disposed to look for a cure from the contempt and raillery of their shipmates. Besides, the rogues are so cunning that they frequently succeed in shifting the blame on to other shoulders; and when one man gets punished for another’s offences we know that the tendency is to make him sullen and discontented. I could name at least a dozen men who, from being bright smart, active, reliable men at the commencement of the cruise, have degenerated into as many idle skulks, solely because their good qualities have received no recognition, and they have been punished over and over again for the faults of others. And as to our leniency toward the men—”
“There, that will do, Mr Reid; the less said on that head the better,” interrupted the skipper impatiently. “This discussion has gone far enough,” he continued, “and I must now request you all to withdraw. You have—relieved your consciences, let us say, by entering this formal protest and expressing your disapproval of my method of dealing with the hands forward; now let the matter drop. And hark ye, one and all, if there is any repetition of this impertinent interference with me, by the Heaven above us I will clap the presumptuous individual who attempts it in irons, and bring him to court-martial at the first convenient port we reach. Now go, and be hanged to you!”
“Very well, sir,” said old David, “we will go; but, before we leave your presence, permit me to observe that—”
I heard no more, for, perceiving that the interview was about to somewhat abruptly terminate, I judged it best to effect an escape from my place of concealment whilst escape was still possible, and I forthwith proceeded hurriedly to do so. I managed to make my way back to the quarter-deck without attracting attention, and had barely secured my shoes and replaced them on my feet when the first lieutenant and his companions emerged from the poop cabin and began to pace the quarter-deck in apparently careless conversation, though I could tell, by the gloomy expression of their countenances, that they were discussing an anything but agreeable topic.
At length the westering sun approached the horizon; and Mr Douglas and Mr Southcott retired to their cabins in anticipation of Captain Pigot’s appearance on deck to watch the nightly operation of reefing topsails, leaving Mr Reid and Mr Maxwell to slowly pace the quarter-deck side by side. It being now my watch on deck, I stationed myself in the waist on the larboard side of the deck and endeavoured to forget the gloomy forebodings which had arisen out of the conversation I had recently overheard by abandoning myself to the soothing influences of the glorious eventide.
It was indeed a glorious evening, such as is seldom or never to be met with outside the tropics. The wind had gradually fallen away during the afternoon until it had dropped stark calm; and there the ship lay, with her head to the northward, gently rolling on the long glassy swell which came creeping stealthily up out from the northward and eastward. The small islands of Mona and Monita—the latter a mere rock—lay broad on our larboard quarter about eight miles distant, two delicate purplish pink blots on the south-western horizon, whilst Desecho reared its head above the north-eastern horizon on our starboard bow, a soft grey marking in the still softer grey haze of the sky in that quarter. A great pile of delicately-tinted purple and ruby clouds with golden edges lay heaped up in detached fantastic masses along the glowing western horizon, shaped into the semblance of an aerial archipelago, with far-stretching promontories and peninsulas, and boldly jutting capes and headlands with deep gulfs and winding straits of rosy sky between. Some of these celestial islands were shaped along their edges into a series of minute gold-tipped projections and irregularities, which needed only the slightest effort of the fancy to become converted into the spires and pinnacles of a populous city or busy seaport; whilst certain minute detached flakelets of crimson and golden cloud dotted here and there about the aerial channels might easily be imagined to be fairy argosies navigating the celestial sea. Gazing, as I did, enraptured, upon that scene of magical beauty, it was not difficult to guess at the origin of that most poetical—as it is perhaps the oldest—nautical superstition, which gives credence to the idea that there exists, far away beyond the sunset, an enchanted region which poor storm-beaten sailors are sometimes permitted to reach, and wherein, during an existence which is indefinitely prolonged, they enjoy a complete immunity from all those perils and hardships with which the seaman’s life is ordinarily environed; wherein life is one long day of ineffable peace and rest and tranquillity; and from whence every disagreeable influence is permanently banished.
I was abruptly aroused from my fanciful musings by the sound of the ship’s bell, four strokes upon which proclaimed the end of the first dog-watch. The momentary bustle of calling the watch immediately followed, in the midst of which came the customary orders to reef topsails. Simultaneously with the appearance of the larboard watch, Captain Pigot issued from his cabin and, ascending the poop ladder, made his way aft to the taffrail, from which position he was able to command a view of the proceedings on each topsail-yard. The royals and topgallant-sails were very smartly clewed up and furled; and, as the topsail halyards were let run, I saw the skipper pull out his watch and, noting the time by it, hold it face upwards in his hand.
“Soho!” thought I, “that does not look very much as though the first lieutenant’s remonstrance had produced any beneficial effect; there’s trouble in store for some of those unfortunates on the yards if they are not exceptionally lively.”
The hands themselves, who had not failed to mark the skipper’s actions, seemed to think so too, and they set about their work with the activity of wild-cats. But “the more hurry the less speed” is an old adage; and so it proved in the present case, the men on the mizzen topsail-yard managing so to bungle matters that when, on the expiration of two and a half minutes—the outside limit of time allowed by the skipper for reefing a topsail—Captain Pigot closed his watch with a snap and replaced it smartly in his pocket, several of the reef-points still remained to be tied.