Chapter Six.
The Black Fish and the Thresher.
“Good gracious me!” exclaimed Mrs Major Negus, jumping up in a fright from the comfortable nap which she had been taking in a lean-back chair on the poop; “where is that unhappy boy? He’ll be the death of me some day!”
“I’m here, ma!” shouted out Maurice from the forecastle. “Do come, everybody. It’s such fun! Ah, there, the big one has just got such a whack and is in a terrible wax. He’s hunting about for the little one, who has dived away from him out of reach!”
“Fokesall, ahoy!” hailed Mr Adams, who had charge of the deck; “what’s the matter forward!”
“Only a fight, sir, between a black-fish and a thresher,” answered Ben Boltrope, the carpenter, an old man-o’-war’s man, and one of the most efficient hands of the Nancy Bell’s crew.
“A fit!” exclaimed Mr Zachariah Lathrope, drawing his long telescopic legs together and rising into a sitting posture on the top of the cabin skylight, where he had been taking his usual afternoon siesta instead of putting himself to the trouble of going below and turning into his bunk, as was his usual wont after luncheon. “A fit! Wa-al I guess I’m on. I allers likes to hitch in with a muss!” and, so saying, the lanky American was soon scrambling down the poop-ladder and making his way forward, followed by all the remainder of the passengers—Mrs Major Negus, of course, going to look after her darling boy, while Frank Harness accompanied Kate Meldrum, as he said, to “take care of her,” although, as her father was not far distant, it might have been supposed that his protecting arm was not so absolutely necessary as he thought!
A very strange spectacle was seen, when the party, after diving beneath the slackened sheets of the mainsail, that flapped about an inert mess of canvas above their heads, and picking their way past the galley and windlass, at last climbed up into the bows of the ship, where the majority of the crew had already assembled and taken up vantage points in the rigging, half-way up which was Master Maurice, waving his hat wildly in a great state of excitement, and the master as it were of the situation.