“Well, Striker, old chap! not much trouble with her to-night. She’s going free too, with the wind in the right quarter. We ought to be making good nine knots?”
“All o’ that, I daresay, sir,” rejoins Striker, mollified by the affable manner in which the first officer has addressed him. “The barque ain’t a bad ’un to go, though she be a queery-rigged craft’s ever I war aboard on.”
“You’ve set foot on a goodish many, I should say, judgin’ from the way ye handle a helm. I see you understan’ steerin’ a ship.”
“I oughter, master,” answers the helmsman, further flattered by the compliment to his professional skill. “Jack Striker’s had a fair show o’ schoolin’ to that bizness.”
“Been a man-o’-war’s man, hain’t you?”
“Ay, all o’ that. Any as doubts it can see the warrant on my back, an’ welcome to do so. Plenty o’ the cat’s claws there, an’ I don’t care a brass fardin’ who knows it.”
“Neyther need ye. Many a good sailor can show the same. For myself, I hain’t had the cat, but I’ve seed a man-o’-war sarvice, an’ some roughish treatment too. An’ I’ve seed sarvice on ships man-o’-war’s men have chased—likin’ that sort a little better; I did.”
“Indeed!” exclaims the ex-convict, turning his eyes with increased interest on the man thus frankly confessing himself. “Smuggler? Or maybe slaver?”
“Little bit o’ both. An’ as you say ’bout the cat, I don’t care a brass fardin’ who knows o’ it. It’s been a hardish world wi’ me; plenty o’ ups an’ downs; the downs oftener than the ups, Just now things are lookin’ sort o’ uppish. I’ve got my berth here ’count o’ the scarcity o’ hands in San Francisco, an’ the luck o’ knowin’ how to take sights an’ keep a log. Still the pay an’t much considerin’ the chances left behind. I daresay I’d ’a done a deal better by stayin’ in Californey, an’ goin’ on to them gold-diggin’s up in the Sacramenta mountains.”
“You han’t been theer, han’t ye?”