Hiram Bangs alone had the pluck to open his mouth and confront the skipper.
Chapter Seventeen.
Mr Flinders in a Fix.
Before relating what next occurred, however, I must break off at this point and make a slight bend in my yarn here, in order to mention something that happened immediately before, and which, although I did not come to hear of it until afterwards, had to do with bringing the skipper so suddenly down upon us. Something, indeed, that tended to infuriate him all the more, with Tom Bullover and Sam; for, from his hearing, by their own confession, that they had planned and kept up the delusion about the cook’s ghost on purpose to deceive him, he was led to believe that these two had got the better of him in another matter, even more important still in his estimation.
And so, as I am only a youngster and a poor hand at telling a story, though I find somehow or other I’m getting to the end of my yarn sooner than I expected when I first set to work writing it, I think I had best pat down everything that happened in its proper place and order, ‘in regular shipshape Bristol fashion,’ so that no hitch may occur by-and-by that might ‘bring me up with a round turn,’ when, perhaps, I could sail on with a free sheet and a fair wind to what you landfolk and longshoremen would call my ‘dénouement’—a sad one, though, it be, as you’ll learn later on, all in good time, as I spin my yarn in my free and easy way!
Well, to go back a bit now, you must know that ever since the thrashing he got from our second-mate, Mr Flinders had kept himself very quiet; not interfering in any way with the work of dismantling and unloading the ship, but leaving the charge of all this in the hands of Jan Steenbock and Tom Bullover—under, of course, the immediate supervision of Captain Snaggs, who, was here, there, and everywhere, pretending to do an awful lot, although really only occupying his time when he wasn’t drinking in bullying those of the men, who being tame-spirited, put up with his bad language.
It must be said, though, for the skipper, that he generally left the old hands alone, for they returned his choicest epithets in kind, always giving him quite as good in the rude vernacular as he gave—discipline being rather slack now the vessel was ashore, as in the merchant service a wreck is supposed by the crew to dissolve all contracts and annul whatever articles may have been signed. Such, at least, is my experience of the sea.
During this interregnum of duty, the first-mate hardly ever left his bunk on board the ship save to go into the cabin and partake of what meals Morris Jones, the steward, provided him with just when that lazy beggar of a Welshman liked.