But all too surely had the thing that men call Fate laid fast hold on the Dreamer. And the boarding-house-keeper
cashed his advance note—returning nothing—and carted him to the Dido, and left him stretched out on the fo’k’stle floor, not knowing or caring where he was, or who he was, or where he was going, and oblivious of all things under the sun.
Nor did he show on deck again until, in the grey of next morning, a man with a great red beard and a flat nose looked into his bunk and called him obscene names, and bade him jump aloft and loose the fore-topsail, or he would let him know what shirking meant on board of the Dido.
‘This is a bad beginning,’ thought Jack Ashby, as, with trembling body and splitting head, he unsteadily climbed the rigging, listening as one but yet half awake to the clank of the windlass pawls and the roaring chorus of the men at the brakes. ‘That’s the feller, sure enough!’ he gasped, as, winded, he dragged himself into the fore-top. ‘I’d swear to him anywhere. Thank the Lord we ain’t goin’ round the Horn! I wonder if he knowed me? He’s the mate. An’ Bill was right; he is a Horse. Damn deep water!’
‘Now then, fore-top, there, shift your pins or I’ll haze you,’ came up in a bellow from the deck, making poor [284] ]Jack jump again as he stared ruefully down at the fierce upturned face, its red beard forking out like a new swab.
‘Thank the Lord, we ain’t goin’ round the Horn!’ said Jack Ashby, as, with tremulous fingers, he loosened the gaskets and let the stiff folds of canvas fall, and sang out to sheet home.
Down the Gulf with a fair wind rattled the Dido, through Investigator Straits and out into the Southern Ocean, whilst Jack cast a regretful look at the lessening line of distant blue, and exclaimed once more,—
‘Damn deep water!’
That evening the officers spin a coin, and proceed to pick their respective watches.
To his disgust, Jack is the very first man chosen by the fierce chief mate, who has won the toss, and who at once says,—