“All right, Tompkins. Only don’t bully them too much, you know!” said the captain good-humouredly, for he was sufficiently acquainted with the first mate’s pleasant way of ordering the men about to be aware that he did not err on the side of leniency in exercising his authority, as he complained that his subordinate officer Tom did.
And thus it happened that when Tom and Charley went below and joined Captain Harding in his slumbers, the deck was left in sole possession of Mr Tompkins and the eight Greek sailors, with the suspicious-looking felucca creeping up rapidly astern, and getting nearer and nearer to the Muscadine each hour.
A stern-chase is proverbially a long one. And so, although the light-winged craft that was following the ship sailed three feet to her two; yet she had such a long start, and the breeze was so fair and dead aft—which was all in favour of a square-rigged vessel and against a fore-and-after, that sails best with the wind abeam—that the felucca was still some five miles off when day broke and the chief mate first discovered her.
He was not alone in his discovery either, for he noticed that a part of the watch were looking over the bulwarks at the approaching vessel, and from their gesticulations and rapid speech in their own language he thought something was up.
Calling one of the Greek sailors, named in the ship’s articles “Pollydorry,” as the captain had put him down, whom he thought he could better make understand that version of “Lingua Franca” which he pretended to know, the mate interrogated him as to what he knew of the felucca, and what was her intention in trying to overhaul them. The man, however, only shrugged his shoulders, and jabbered something which he could make nothing of; and as the group then ceased speaking together, or paying any attention to the stranger, Mr Tompkins put down their excitable demeanour to their being only foreigners, and their natural way of going on, so unlike the stolid British seafaring man, who hardly notices anything except it specially concerns him, and even then keeps what he thinks to himself.
As it was getting near the time, however, for him to be relieved of his watch and go off duty—although it still wanted half an hour to four bells, when it was Tom Aldridge’s turn to come on deck again and call up the other men below—he thought he would give Charley Onslow a hail in the meantime, to come up and keep him company until then. Not that he was a bit alarmed at the approach of the felucca, as he said to himself, or that he was anyway at all frightened at being alone on deck with the Greek sailors when so many more of their comrades might be so close at hand. But it was always best to be on the safe side, and there was nothing like a man in authority, as he was, taking due precaution against any possible danger, no matter how remote.
Thus trying to cheat his own conscience, Mr Tompkins sang out for Charley down the companion, awaking him from the soundest sleep he had had for weeks with the echoes of his melodious voice.
“Just like the braying of a jackass afflicted with bronchitis,” as Charley said afterwards ruefully, to his chum.
Much to the first mate’s annoyance, he not only awoke Charley, but Tom also; both the lads coming on deck together.
“I didn’t call you, Mr Aldridge,” he said angrily. “My watch is not over yet.”