For some time, no part of the discussion was very distinct, so great was the confusion of tongues; and there were certain symptoms of an intention, on the part of Fid and the boatswain, to settle their controversy by the last appeal. During this moment of suspense, the former had squared his firm-built frame in front of his gigantic opponent, and there were very vehement passings and counter-passings, in the way of gestures from four athletic arms, each of which was knobbed, like a fashionable rattan, with a lump of bones, knuckles, and sinews, that threatened annihilation to any thing that should oppose them. As the general clamour, however, gradually abated, the chief reasoners began to be heard; and, as if content to rely on their respective powers of eloquence, each gradually relinquished his hostile attitude, and appeared disposed to maintain his ground by a member scarcely less terrible than his brawny arm.
“You are a bold seaman, brother,” said Nightingale resuming his seat, “and, if saying was doing, no doubt you would make a ship talk. But I, who have seen fleets of two and three deckers—and that of all nations, except your Mohawks, mayhap, whose cruisers I will confess never to have fallen in with—lying as snug as so many white gulls, under reefed mainsails, know how to take the strain off a ship, and to keep my bulkheads in their places.”
“I deny the judgment of heaving-to a boat under her after square-sails,” retorted Dick. “Give her the stay-sails, if you will, and no harm done; but a true seaman will never get a bagful of wind between his mainmast and his lee-swifter, if-so-be he knows his business. But words are like thunder, which rumbles aloft, without coming down a spar, as I have yet seen; let us therefore put the question to some one who has been on the water, and knows a little of life and of ships.”
“If the oldest admiral in his Majesty’s fleet was here, he wouldn’t be backward in saying who is right and who is wrong. I say, brothers, if there is a man among you all who has had the advantage of a sea education, let him speak, in order that the truth of this matter may not be hid, like a marling-spike jammed between a brace-block and a blackened yard.”
“Here, then, is the man,” returned Fid; and, stretching out his arm, he seized Scipio by the collar, and drew him, without ceremony, into the centre of the circle, that had opened around the two disputants “There is a man for you, who has made one more voyage between this and Africa than myself, for the reason that he was born there. Now, answer as if you were hallooing from a lee-earing, S’ip, under what sail would you heave-to a ship, on the coast of your native country, with the danger of a white squall at hand?”
“I no heave-’em-to,” said the black, “I make ’em scud.”
“Ay, boy; but, to be in readiness for the puff, would you jam her up under a mainsail, or let her lie a little off under a fore course?”
“Any fool know dat,” returned Scipio, grumly and evidently tired already of being thus catechised.
“If you want ’em fall off, how you’m expect, in reason, he do it under a main course? You answer me dat, misser Dick.”
“Gentlemen,” said Nightingale, looking about him with an air of great gravity, “I put it to your Honours, is it genteel behaviour to bring a nigger, in this out-of-the-way fashion, to give an opinion in the teeth of a white man?”