"However, I drew comfort from the thought that when my hand got well I could win back my berth in the same manner, and to this end applied at once to the captain for bandages and splints from the medicine chest. He responded like a brother; but earned none of my gratitude, for I considered the medicine chest as furnished out of the Marine Hospital dues, which I had paid for years.
"I had noticed that my pistol and Macklin's knife had disappeared from the water tank, and supposed that he, as the first act in his new position, had confiscated them. So, as I had no use for a gun while 'fore the mast, I put the matter from my mind. I meant to sing small, until my hand was well.
"But what followed in that ship shows how little we can depend upon our good resolutions. I was still in the starboard watch, having taken Macklin's place forward, while he, as mate, had charge of the port watch, and Mr. Parker as second, became my watch officer. So far there had been no friction between Mr. Parker and myself; but now I found the man dead down on me, as though he blamed me for his licking and his change of office.
"One-handed, I was almost useless around decks, and could not steer except in the finest of weather; but this made no difference. I was hounded, cursed, and struck, not only by Parker, but by the skipper and Macklin. Some kind of armed neutrality must have sprung up between Macklin and Parker with regard to me; but I could only ascribe the skipper's new personal attitude to a distrust of my philosophy, which, while impelling me to make the best of matters, may have seemed to him the calm before the storm. I escaped Macklin's abuse, however, except in the dog watches, when all hands were on deck.
"They damned, deviled, and degraded me, keeping me all night on lookout, and rousing me from sleep at any time of the day watch below to climb aloft and loose a royal stop buntlines, or remove an Irish pennant—a loose rope yarn, you know—from any part of the rigging. My nerves went back on me from loss of sleep and futile anger and brooding; and once, when Macklin stripped off the sling I had rigged to hold my sore fist, and knocked me down for protesting, I saw red for a moment.
"Even so, nothing might have happened—had not the crew been included in the drill they were serving me. As an old hand in deep-water ships, I knew the absolute necessity of preserving discipline, and that this can be done only by occasionally knocking down a malcontent; but no such considerations demanded the wholesale clubbing with heavers and handspikes which the men got from the trio. Belaying pins were not used—they were too small and light for the gentlemen. Macklin had four deadly enemies when he went aft, and soon every man forward had a grievance, and voiced it in muttered profanity that held many a threat of death. I fancy that it was my presence in the forecastle that inspired all this ill treatment; no doubt I was regarded as a bad example, whose influence over the men must be offset by stern, repressive measures, but whom they would not remove because of their dislike of the law. For the law could reach a skipper or mate, as Macklin well knew.
"And the crew? Never was a wild, half-crazy herd of Liverpool Irishmen kept under control as that crowd was by a bad example. While aft I had treated them well, and they liked me for my scrap with Macklin; so, they listened while I counseled submission and avoidance of legal consequences—which last was the only point I made. They feared neither man, God, nor devil; but they did fear the law, and grew quiet when I talked of jail and the gallows. And this fear possibly accounted for my finding my pistol—a newly invented Colt revolver—lying in my bunk, one morning when I came in from a long night's lookout to get my breakfast.
"'Who put this here?' I demanded. 'Who had my gun?'
"No one would acknowledge the gift; but the state of mind behind it was given in the remark of one, 'Now ye've got it again, use it!'
"I tucked it under my mattress, resolved not to use it; but a little later put it into my trousers pocket. Fear of the law, forward and aft, began to yield to fear of death. Men openly sharpened their knives, and the afterguard ostentatiously showed their pistols. Their pistols were not so good as mine—they were double-barreled, muzzle-loading derringers, with only two shots.