"What made you ship on board the vessel?" inquired Charlie.
"Bless your soul, boy, I wouldn't a done it if I'd known who was in command; leastways, if I had known a little more about him. But I didn't ask any questions. I had just got in from a v'y'ge to Calcutta, and happened to see one of my old shipmates, Jim Davis, walking on the wharf. 'Bill,' says he, 'why won't you ship along of me?' I asked him where he was bound, and he telled me to Valparaiso, on board the Bouncing Betsey. Well, I've been most everywhere else, but I had never been there, and reckoned I should like to see it. Besides, I'd got tired of going to Calcutta. I've been there, man and boy, six or eight times. It's too hot to live there some parts of the year. So I just told him I was in for it if he was, provided there was a vacancy. I asked him if he knew anything about the officers. He said he didn't, but he guessed they would pass. So I just stepped into the office and shipped. There, lad, that's the whole story. I don't mind it much myself. They don't generally meddle much with me."
"Have you sailed with bad captains before?" inquired our hero.
"Yes, my lad, sometimes. One captain I sailed with—I was a young man then—was Captain Maguire. He was a sort of an Irishman, I surmise, and mighty fond of drink. He was pleasant enough when he was sober, but that wasn't often. When he was drunk, he got into a regular fury. He would tear round the deck like as he was crazy, and so he was after a fashion, for he didn't seem to know, after he had got out of his fits, what he had done when he was in 'em. One day, I remember, as I was at work, he came up to me, and gave me a terrible thwack side of the head, swearing like a trooper all the time."
"What did you do?" asked Charlie, looking up with interest into the weather-beaten face of the old sailor.
"I'll tell you," said Sturdy; "you see, I'm pretty strong," glancing at his brawny arms and herculean frame with pardonable complacency; "I don't often meet a man I can't manage as easily as the mate can manage you. Now the captain wasn't a large man, by any means, nor very strong, either. As to the mates,—one of them was sick in his berth, and the other was in another part of the ship; so I just took the captain up in my arms, and carried him down to the cabin, kickin' and cursin', as might be expected, and laid him down there. The officers did not see what was goin' on, or there'd have been trouble. As for the crew, they enjoyed it, and wouldn't a man of 'em tell; and as the captain didn't remember anything about it the next day, I didn't get punished."
"Did you ever get punished?" asked Charlie.
"Never since I grew up, and had these to fight my way with," said Bill Sturdy, showing his fists, which looked as if a blow from either of them would have felled an ox. "No, my lad, these are what I call my sledge-hammers, and I'd as lives have them to rely upon as a pair of pistols."