Friends in Council.
The Muscadine when she left England had a crew of some twenty hands, or with the captain, and first and second mates, and our friends Tom and Charley, twenty-five men altogether—a very fair average, as the proportion of the seamen usually borne in merchant ships is at the rate of about three to every hundred tons of the vessel’s burthen.
Through the illness, however, of the fust officer, Mr Wilson, an amiable man and a thorough sailor, whom everybody liked—quite the reverse of the odious Tompkins, Tom’s and Charley’s special bête-noir—and a large number of the seamen, whom they were forced to leave behind in hospital at Beyrout, the complement of the ship was much reduced, and her crew now mustered, officers and men, but twenty in number, of which total twelve were Englishmen who had originally belonged to her, and eight the Greeks whom the captain had so suddenly shipped at the last moment.
“It’s a good job that Cap’en Harding didn’t get any more of those blessed Greeks aboard: they’re almost equal to us now, man for man,” said Tom to Charley, who on this first night of their being at sea after so long a detention in port was performing an act of not altogether disinterested friendship in sharing the first watch on deck of the newly-promoted “second mate,” as he would persist in addressing Tom.
“Yes, sir; I think you are about right, sir,” replied Charley, with a mock deference, which made Tom grin in spite of his endeavours to preserve a dignified composure. “Is there anything else, sir, you’d like me to say, sir?”
“Only, that I’ll kick you in the lee scuppers if you call me ‘sir’ again. But, Charley, joking aside, I don’t like us having all those Greeks here, and we so short-handed too.”
“Don’t you see that that is the precise reason why they are here, most sapient of second officers? if we hadn’t been short-handed the cap’en wouldn’t have shipped them.”
“Yes, yes, I know that,” replied the other shortly. “You don’t seem to follow me, Charley, really. What I meant to point out was, that there are only twelve of us belonging to the ship on whom we could rely—indeed only eleven, for that matter, as I don’t count on Tompkins; a bully like him would be sure to show the white-feather in a scrimmage—while these Greek chaps muster eight strong, all of them pretty biggish men, too, and all armed with them beastly long knives of theirs, which I’ve no doubt they know how to use.”
“Bless you, Tom, Cap’en Harding would be a match for half-a-dozen of them with his revolver; and you and I would be able to master the other two, without calling for aid on any of the foremast hands, or relying on your chum Tompkins. How fond you’re of him, Tom!”
“Hang Tompkins, and you too, Charley! You can’t be serious for a moment!”