To my mind the argument was a feeble one, not worthy a brave man like Captain Ropes; but I held my peace, understanding that it could hardly be pleasing for Simon to hear me criticise his father.
While the crew discussed the supposed ominous omen, I brooded over the fancied injustice of the captain toward Simon and myself, and in a very short time succeeded in believing that I was a veritable victim.
Simon Ropes displayed more sound common sense than all the remainder of us put together, and from that time when he stood up like a man battling against the fancies and whims of the men, with never one, not even I who counted myself his comrade, to back him, I came to know the lad for the hero he afterward proved himself to be when the decks were slippery with American blood.
Within two days after the topmast had been carried away the men were in very nearly a mutinous mood, some claiming that the America should put back sufficiently long to cast off the spell of ill fortune which had been thrown over her, and others declaring that at the first opportunity they would desert, believing they were morally entitled to do so in order to save their own lives.
“If it was only a case of standin’ up in a fair fight, no matter how big might be the odds against us, I’d willingly take my chances with the others, because I shipped for such work,” one of the younger men of the crew said more than once in my hearing. “But this flyin’ in the face of bad luck, with a warnin’ plain before us, is more’n I bargained for.”
As a matter of course, his messmates should have reported him for uttering words which were well calculated to destroy the discipline of the ship; but it was as if nearly every man on board, save the officers, were in much the same way of thinking.
It was not simply the carrying away of a spar which so disturbed the crew; but, rather, the manner in which it was done, together with the time of the accident, all of which we lads heard discussed during nearly every hour while we were off duty.
The topmast was a new spar, and there was no apparent reason for its breaking; the gale was not heavy enough to cause the mishap, and the men refused to entertain the very reasonable explanation that there had been some defect in the timber, which escaped the notice of the spar-makers.
Then again, the accident had occurred on the first Friday after leaving port, and before we had sighted the sail of an enemy. Such a combination of circumstances, so the old shellbacks declared, was sufficient to stamp the affair as an omen of the most pronounced character.