“So think I, Cap’en,” replied the mate with corresponding heartiness. “It will last, too,” he added, after another glance round the horizon; “and I reckon we’ll not get any more nasty weather; the gale has about blowed itself out!”
“Right you are,” said Captain Blowser, slapping him on the back in his jovial way when he felt especially good-tempered; “an’ we’ll have an extra glass of old Bourbon come dinner-time on the strength of it, old boss! How the beauty does walk, to be sure! I wouldn’t swap a timber of her for the best Philadelphia-built clipper out of the Delaware!”
“Nor I,” acquiesced the mate, whose opinion the skipper valued so highly that this encomium of his as to the transcendent merits of the Susan Jane, which was really a splendid craft in her way, and a capital sea boat, completed the sum of his happiness; and he had just called out to Jasper, the steward, to bring up an Angostura cocktail to cement their feelings of friendship and get up an appetite for dinner, which would not be ready for another hour, when the voice of Tom Cannon was heard hailing the deck from the foretop.
“Darn that chap, he’s allers hailing!” exclaimed the skipper. “What the dickens does he want now?”
“He don’t call out for nothin’,” said the mate. “He’s too cute a seaman for that! When Tom Cannon hails, you may depend on it, Cap’en, it’s time to look out for squalls!”
“Blow your squalls!” said the captain good-humouredly. “You don’t want me to take in sail surely with this wind, you old Mother Carey’s chicken? But let’s listen to what Tom says. He’s a smart man, I reckon, sure enough—the smartest sailor we’ve got in the ship; and I was only jokin’ when I said that about his hailing!”
Tom Cannon’s favourite place of resort when the ship was at sea, and there was nothing for him to do, especially when he was in the watch off duty, was the foretop, whither he would climb up, blow high or blow low, and ensconce himself, sometimes for hours, until his services were required on deck, or else the rattling of pannikins and mess-kits warned him that something was “going on in the grub line below,” when he would descend the rattlins, swiftly or leisurely as the case might be, and take his turn at either grub or duty “like a man!”
On this day the captain had not long taken the sun, and “made it eight bells”—twelve o’clock—so the men had all had their dinner, and Tom gone up to his accustomed post of observation or reflection, for he couldn’t read, and never slept when he was in the top, although he could have done so comfortably enough if he had wanted to.
He was standing erect, looking out ahead, for he was a careful seaman, as both the captain and mate could vouch for, and possessed the keenest eyesight of any man in the ship—a natural gift for which he was very thankful in his way, and of which it must be said he was also very proud.
“Sail-ho!” he shouted, catching sight of something not long after he had taken up his position in the foretop and began to look out mechanically in front of the ship’s course, as was his natural wont.