“That’s it,” said Dawkins. “On’y, if you feed the beasts with sound victual and plenty of it, why, they don’t think of nothing but their bellies. And so, d’ye see, they don’t mutiny. Therefore I says Hispaniola.”
“It’s a French island,” said the captain. “We don’t want to make a present of the ship to the enemy, sir.”
“I reckon,” said Dawkins, “the hunters would sooner sell beef than try to take a ship which they couldn’t do nothing with if they had it. But you know best, Mr Shargeloes, not a doubt about it.”
“Well, sir,” says the captain, mollified, “I vote for Barbadoes, as an English island. What do you think, Mr Agent?”
Mr Agent, being incapable of thought, chanced to side with the captain. When the votes were counted, it was Brandon’s vote that turned the scale. We were to go to Barbadoes.
“And as to mutiny, Mr Dawkins,” said the captain, harping on his dread aversion, “I should tell you that I do not like the word. It’s a dangerous word—an unlucky word at sea—eh?”
“I don’t value the word a penny,” says Dawkins. “Any word will do for me, Mr Shargeloes. I seen a many such”—thus did Mr Dawkins clear the sunken rock—“maroonings, knives going, and what not, but I never see much gained by it. It don’t frighten me. There’s things which frighten a man, and things which don’t, d’ye see? I reckon what scares me most,” said Mr Dawkins, simply, “is a poor old age a-drawing nigh with no money and no rations.”
Whether the captain liked it or not, there was discontent in the air. The salt pork was rotten, the stock-fish putrid, the biscuit worm-infested, and—worst of all—the beer was sour. Pomfrett cursed Gamaliel for a thief, as he was; but he might have discovered a fraud so gross and palpable before the victuals were shipped. Mr Brandon Pomfrett got his first lesson in the business of his office at the expense of the crew. For, in the cabin, we had store of hams, beef, tongues, cheese, and wine to last us nearly to the West Indies.
We had been a week at sea, when the boatswain came aft at the head of a deputation of some dozen seamen. He carried a steaming pannikin, which reeked like carrion.
“It ain’t our way,” said the boatswain, after presenting the mess to the captain, “to complain of the ship’s rations. But as to this here—well, there, we only asks you, sir, kindly to taste of it.”