But the ship must be got ready for sea; and after a wearing day of work, with tentative orders from the two mates, with sarcastic comment from the captain, and insolent protest from the bewildered "rope-haulers," this was finally accomplished; and at eight bells in the evening, with the tug cast off and the towline coiled down to dry, with canvas set and the course given to the helmsman, Smith and Jones mustered the men into the waist to choose watches. They picked their men, one after another, with less interest in the proceedings than manifested by the men themselves. Then the first mate said, wearily: "Relieve the wheel and lookout. That'll do the port watch," and went to his berth demoralized and despondent, sick at heart—in the mind state of a prize-fighter lately whipped. The second mate walked the deck in about the same mood, until four bells struck, when, about the time that Smith fell asleep, he roused up his individuality and proved himself a competent and masterful second mate. The watch responded slowly to his call to the main-brace, and he went among them with a belaying pin.
When Smith relieved him at midnight he, too, felt the inhibition until Jones fell asleep, when his powers revived and his watch learned his caliber. Neither man knew the cause of the change of mood. As far as they could analyze their emotions they were nervous, broody, hateful, revengeful, and cowardly, until some reluctancy or misdoing of the men roused them to righteous rage. They did not, and could not, know that this revulsion did not occur until the other was asleep. This brought about a somewhat amusing condition of affairs a few days out.
An Orkney-Islander of Mr. Jones's watch—an intelligent, self-respecting man, who was aloft on the mizzen with a tar-pot—spilled a few drops on the clean white paintwork of the house; and Mr. Jones, standing beside the window of the sleeping Mr. Smith, witnessed the careless act, and shouted:
"Come down here, you long-headed billy-goat, and I'll make you smell hell!"
"Ay, that I will," answered the man, scrambling down in a hurry.
Irreverent forecastle tradition has it that the Orkney Islands are peopled by the descendants of a shipwrecked Dane and a nanny-goat. This tradition found its birth and acceptance, no doubt, from the goatlike characteristics of the heads, faces, and beards of this hardy race of people. But to apply the epithet goat to an Orkneyman is like saying Sawney to a Scot or nigger to a man-and-brother. Mr. Jones faced a raging lunatic; but Mr. Smith had wakened at his shout, was intently listening in the berth below, and Mr. Jones's efficiency left him. He backed away from the enraged sailor, then incontinently fled, pelted in the back by a hard and tarry fist, and occasionally kicked by a heavy sea-boot. Around the house they went, the man in an unspent fury of anger, Jones in an agony of fear and humiliation, until, at the second lap, Mr. Smith appeared at the forward companion, which opened on to the extension of the poop around which they had raced, with as much disquiet in his face as was in Jones's.
"You, too," bellowed the man. "Stand still, an' I'll no eat my dinner till I've licked you baith."
Mr. Smith stood for a moment or two, long enough to receive several crashing blows in the face, which he only tried to shield with his open, enfolding hands; then he, too, fled, but to his room, where he locked himself in.
Mr. Jones had put the house between himself and the enemy, who, having conquered both mates, now seemed to be looking for the captain; but when the captain appeared with a revolver he quieted down, and tamely went in irons. The captain's opinion of his mates must not be given; and the two mates' experiences with the men before, by individual action while the other slept, they had regained their ascendancy and authority, need not be detailed.
The ship was bound for Melbourne, a long passage full of possibilities; but they ate at separate tables, and after the first day's work seldom met except at the change of watches, when one would report to the other the happenings of the watch—the course, speed, direction and changes of the wind, and the progress of routine work—in a strained tone that was answered by the other with an equally embarrassed response. When both were awake their attitude and behavior were such as to merit the frankly expressed contempt of the skipper. When one was asleep, the other earned and won the hatred of his own watch, and this, by forecastle communion, was extended to the other.