“Do you mean Noah’s ark?” said Perrin.
“The public-house?” asked the captain.
“No. A ship. I’ll tell you of the last ship.”
“What has the last ship got to do with the great times on the lagoon?” asked Margaret.
“Just this, Captain Margaret. When a growler. A pug, you understand; one of the hands forward there. When a seaman comes aboard a new ship, he always blows at the rate of knots about his last. You’ll never hear of the ship he’s in. No, sir. She’s hungry. Or wet. Or her old man’s a bad one. But so soon as he leaves her. Oh, my love, what a ship she was, my love. Bacon for breakfast; fires to dry your clothes at; prayers and rum of a Sunday forenoon. Everything. That’s what I mean by a last ship. So when I says we’d great times on the lagoon, why, it’s only a way of speaking. I mean as it seems just beautiful, now it’s over. I’ll just trouble you, Mr. Perrin, if there’s any more beer in the jug.”
“So that’s the last ship, Captain Cammock,” said Margaret. “Well, and now tell us what seems great to you, when you think of—of your last ship, in the lagoon, as you call it.”
Captain Cammock looked at Perrin, who seldom spoke at meals, perhaps because his intellect was too feeble to allow him to do more than one thing at a time. Perrin, who hated to be looked at when he was eating, from some shy belief that no one looked at him save with a desire to laugh, gulped what he had in his mouth at the moment, choked, and hid his confusion in his tankard. Captain Cammock did the same, lest he should appear rude.
“Now that’s no easy question, Captain Margaret,” he said. “It wasn’t great, now I come to think of it. It was hard work. As hard as shovelling coal. And hot. Oh, it’s hot in them lagoons. Sometimes our shirts would be wringing wet with perspiration. And often we were up to our knees in mud, where we worked, and little red devils biting us, besides mosquitoes. And there were thorns on the logwood; spikes as sharp as stings.”
“What were your amusements?” said Margaret.
“Oh, as to them,” replied the captain. “We’d go hunt a wild cow on Saturdays. Or perhaps fish. Or sometimes we’d go a lot of us among the Indians, to a paw-waw. And then ships come. We’d great times when ships come. In the moonlight. We’d sing and drink rum. And firing off pistols and cheering. Oh, we’d great times.”