“‘No, Josh,’ replied Quashee gloomily. ‘I nebber learnt, nohow.’
“‘Can you sing hymn, den?’ questioned his brother in misfortune again.
“‘No, Josh,’ answered the other still more gloomily. ‘Um can’t pray, can’t sing hymn, can’t do nuffin’!’
“‘Den,’ said Josh as if a brilliant idea had suddenly struck him, ‘we must hab collection—must do sumfin’ to git out ob dis hole, an’ I know when dey don’t pray or sing in de chapel dey always hab collection; so we’ll hab one now!’”
“I wouldn’t mind betting,” observed Mr Marline, when he had done laughing at this anecdote, “that the clergyman who related the story did it as a sort of introduction for ‘passing round the hat’ at the very meeting where you heard it!”
“That’s just precisely what he did!” replied Captain Miles, joining in the other’s laugh; “and, it was a very good introduction to a collection, too, I think!”
It was on a Sunday evening that the little fracas between Jake and Cuffee occurred. This squabble terminated amicably enough; but the next day, Monday, a bit of a real row happened on board, which did not end quite so agreeably to one of the persons concerned.
It was a blazing hot day, with the sun like a ball of fire in the heavens above and the sea steaming below with the heat. The atmosphere was close and hazy, making it so stifling that one could hardly breathe freely—just exactly the sort of weather, in fact, that is met with on the West Coast of Africa at the mouths of some of those pestilential and swampy rivers there that have been the death of so many gallant officers and seamen annually sent to the station for the purpose of putting down the slave-trade and protecting greedy traders in their pursuit of palm-oil and gold dust!
During the afternoon of this day, when the sun was about its hottest, making the pitch melt and ooze out from the seams of the deck planking, Davis, who had charge of the starboard watch, came up from below to relieve Mr Marline.
He was late in coming to his post, and I could see he had been drinking, a habit he had lately taken to indulging in, especially after the calm set in; and, as he mounted the poop-ladder, he certainly did not look particularly amiable, for his dark eyes were glaring and his tumbled hair gave him a most ferocious appearance.