“What signifies a great clumsy boat that the brig could n't hoist in nor tow,” answered Jack, coolly, turning short round at the same time, but not condescending to “uncoil” his arms as he did so, a mark of indifference that would probably have helped to mystify the captain, had he even actually suspected that anything was wrong beyond the supposed accident to the boat in question. “If you had had the boat astarn, Captain Spike, an order would have been given to cut it adrift the first time the brig made sail on the wind.”
“Nobody knows, Jack; that boat would have been very useful to us while at work about the wreck. You never even turned out this morning to let me know where that craft lay, as you promised to do, but left us to find it out by our wits.”
“There was no occasion for my tellin' you anything about it, sir, when the mast-heads was to be seen above water. As soon as I heard that them 'ere mast-heads was out of water, I turned over and went to sleep upon it. A man can't be on the doctor's list and on duty at the same time.”
Spike looked hard at the little steward, but he made no further allusion to his being off duty, or to his failing to stand pilot to the brig as she came through the passage in quest of the schooner's remains. The fact was, that he had discovered the mast-heads himself, just as he was on the point of ordering Jack to be called, having allowed him to remain in his berth to the last moment after his watch, according to a species of implied faith that is seldom disregarded among seamen. Once busied on the wreck, Jack was forgotten, having little to do in common with any one on board, but that which the captain termed the “women's mess.”
“Come aft, Jack,” resumed Spike, after a considerable pause, during the whole of which he had stood regarding the little steward as if studying his person, and through that his character. “Come aft to the trunk; I wish to catechise you a bit.”
“Catechise!” repeated Tier, in an under tone, as he followed the captain to the place mentioned. “It's a long time since I've done anything at that!”
“Ay, come hither,” resumed Spike, seating himself at his ease on the trunk, while Jack stood near by, his arms still folded, and his rotund little form as immovable, under the plunges that the lively brig made into the head-seas that she was obliged to meet, as if a timber-head in the vessel itself. “You keep your sea-legs well, Jack, short as they are.”
“No wonder for that, Captain Spike; for the last twenty years I've scarce passed a twelvemonth ashore; and what I did before that, no one can better tell than yourself, since we was ten good years shipmates.”
“So you say, Jack, though I do not remember you as well as you seem to remember me. Do you not make the time too long?”
“Not a day, sir. Ten good and happy years did we sail together, Captain Spike; and all that time in this very—”