“But, thet b’y thaar?” called out Hiram Bangs, as they were all shuffling forward again, now that the palaver was over and the subject thoroughly discussed, as they thought, in all its bearings; “yer won’t leather him no more? The little cuss warn’t to blame; the nigger said so, hisself!”
“No, I won’t thrash him agen, since he’s a friend o’ yer’s,” replied the skipper, jocularly, evidently glad that the affair was now hushed up. “Ye ken cut him down if ye like, an’ take him forrud with ye.”
“Right ye air, cap, so we will,” said Hiram, producing his clasp knife in a jiffey and severing the lashings that bound me to the rigging, “Come along, Cholly; an’ we’ll warm ye up in the fo’c’s’le arter yer warmin’ up aft from the skipper!”
The hands responded with a laugh to this witticism, apparently forgetting all about the terrible scene that had so lately taken place, as they escorted me in triumph towards the fore part of the ship; while the captain went up on the poop and relieved Jan Steenbock, speaking to him very surlily, and telling him to go down into the cabin and see what had become of the first-mate, Mr Flinders, and if he was any better, and fit to come on duty. As for himself, he had now quite recovered from the effects of whatever the unfortunate cook had put into the stew he had eaten, and which had alarmed him with the fear of being poisoned.
I, however, could not so readily put the fearful scene I had been such an unwilling witness of so quickly out of my remembrance; and, as I went forward with the kind-hearted but thoughtless fellows who had saved me from a further thrashing, I felt quite sick with horror. A dread weight, as of something more horrible still, that was about to happen, filled my mind.
Nor did the conversation I heard in the fo’c’s’le tend to soothe my startled nerves and make me feel more comfortable.
The men’s tea was still in the coppers, poor Sam having made up a great fire in the galley before going off on his last journey, and this was now served out piping hot all round, the men helping themselves, for no one had yet been elected to fill the darkey’s vacant place. No one, indeed, seemed anxious to remain longer than could be helped within the precincts of the cook’s domain, each man hurrying out again from the old caboose as quickly as he filled his pannikin from the bubbling coppers with the decoction of sloe leaves, molasses and water, which, when duly boiled together does duty with sailor-folk for tea!
Then—sitting round the fo’c’s’le, some on the edge of the hatch-coaming, some dangling their legs over the windlass bitts, and others bringing themselves to an anchor on a coil of the bower hawser, that had not been stowed away properly below, but remained lumbering the deck—all began to yarn about the events of the day. Their talk gradually veered round to a superstitious turn on the second dog-watch drawing to a close; and, as the shades of night deepened over our heads, so that I could hardly now distinguish a face in the gloom, the voices of the men sank down imperceptibly to a mere whisper, thus making what they said sound more weird and mysterious, all in keeping with the scene and its surroundings.
Of course, Sam formed the principal subject of their theme; and, after speaking of what a capital cook and good chum he was, ‘fur a darkey,’ as Hiram Bangs put it, having some scruples on the subject of colour, from being an American, Tom Bullover alluded to the negro’s skill at the banjo.
“Aye, bo, he could give us a toon when he liked, fur he wer mighty powerful a-fingerin’ them strings. He made the durned thing a’most speak, I reckon,” observed Hiram Bangs; adding reflectively,—“An’ the curiousest thing about him wer thet he wer the only nigger I ever come athwart of ez warn’t afeard of sperrits.”