“Aye, aye, my hearty,” answered Sails, with great nonchalance. “And I’ve sewed you up in your hammock, too, for sarten—that is, just as sure as you fetched across that there streaky mule of yourn, arter sailing over the ocean for three weeks, and made a guernsey frock out of a Manilla hawser!”
There was a regular shout of laughter from all hands at the sail-maker thus turning the tables so completely on the Irishman, who got so angry at our merriment for the moment that he retired within his caboose, slamming the half-door too, and declaring that not a single mother’s son of those present should have the taste of hot coffee again in the morning watch!
However, Pat’s fits of temper were as evanescent as they were quickly produced, and presently he was laughing and talking away as if he had not been offended, enjoying the joke Sails had against him almost as much as any of the others.
Two days after crossing the Line we sighted the Rocas, on passing the parallel of Fernando Noronha, where the Brazilians have a penal settlement; and, on the third day, we cleared the Cape of Saint Roque, which is the most projecting point of the South American continent—stretching out, as it does, miles into the Atlantic Ocean, while the coast-line on either side of it trends away in a wide sweep, away westwards, north and south, back from the sea.
After passing Saint Roque, we ran down our latitudes rapidly, the south-east Trades keeping with us until we had reached the twentieth parallel; and we fetched Rio on our forty-second day out. This was not bad time, considering the great distance we were driven out of our way by the gale, and the fact of our subsequently knocking about for a week in the Doldrums.
With regard to matters on board the ship, I may state here, that, from the date of that eventful night when the Esmeralda had so providentially escaped being wrecked on the Rocks of Saint Paul, and Captain Billings, after “dressing down” the mate, had restored me to my former position aft, Mr Macdougall had not spoken a single word to me, although I had made many overtures of peace towards him, wishing the matter to drop—nothing being so unpleasant as to be on awkward terms with any one with whom one is brought in constant contact, especially when the daggers-drawn parties are cooped up together in a vessel on the high seas.
But, no; he would not accept the olive branch.
When it was time for me to relieve his watch, the mate invariably sent one of the hands to summon me, telling me through the same medium the course to be steered, and giving what orders were necessary for the working of the ship, so that there should be no occasion for any conversation between us; and it likewise happened that when we were on deck together, as was frequently the case during the day, he always walked on the weather side of the poop, while I took the leeward place—that is, unless the skipper was there too, when of course the latter promenaded the more honourable beat, and I walked by his side, while Mr Macdougall had the lee-side then all to himself.
At meal-times also, in the cabin, he took care that we should not meet, never coming in until after I had left the table, and always rising up to go on deck should I enter while he was there.
The mate held aloof in a similar fashion from the skipper, the two never interchanging a word save with reference to the navigation of the vessel. He seemed, indeed, to have sent us both to Coventry, although Captain Billings made no comment to me on his conduct; but I did not fail to notice—what indeed was the popular belief through the ship—that, if the first mate was paying us out in this way, he did not forget to “take it out of the crew” in another and very practical mode of his own, which was by driving them as hard as a workhouse superintendent in charge of a lot of poor paupers.