The new member of the crew followed the mate up the ladder—only a few steps, for the huge schooner, with most of her cargo aboard, showed less than ten feet of freeboard amidships.
“Sleepy, George?” asked the mate, when they were on deck.
“No, sir.”
“Then you may as well go on this watch.”
“Yass'r!”
“We'll call it now eight bells, midnight. You'll go off watch eight bells, morning.”
Mayo knew that the hour was not much later than eleven, but he did not protest; he knew something about the procedure aboard coastwise coal-schooners.
Search-lights bent steady glare upon the chutes down which rushed the streams of coal, black dust swirling in the white radiance. The great pockets at Lambert Point are never idle. High above, on the railway, trains of coal-cars racketed. Under his feet the fabric of the vessel trembled as the chutes fed her through the three hatches. Sweating, coal-blackened men toiled in the depths of her, revealed below hatches by the electric lights, pecking at the avalanche with their shovels, trimming cargo.
The young man exchanged a few listless words with the two negroes who were on deck, his mates of the watch.
They were plainly not interested in him, and he avoided them.