But the captain and mates were not won over. Practical Johnson—an able seaman from crown to toe—knew how to avoid or forestall their abuse; but Breen did not. The very presence of such a man as he before the mast was a continuous menace,—an insult to their artificial superiority,—and they assailed him at each mistake with volleys of billingsgate that brought a flush to his fine face and tears to his eyes; later, a deadly paleness that would have been a warning to tyrants of better discrimination. Once again, while being rebuked in this manner, his self-control left him. With white face and blazing eyes he darted at Mr. Knapp, and had almost repeated Johnson's feat on the poop when an iron belaying-pin in the hands of the captain descended upon him and broke his left arm. Mr. Knapp's fists and boots completed his tutelage, and he was carried to his bunk with another lesson learned. Johnson, swearing the while, skilfully set the broken bones and made a sling; then, by tactful wheedling of the steward, secured certain necessaries from the medicine-chest, with hot water from the galley; but open assistance was refused by the captain.
Breen, scarcely able to move, held to his bunk for a few days; then, the first mild skirts of the trade-wind being reached, the mate drove him to the wheel, to steer one-handed through the day, while all hands (in the afternoon) worked in the rigging. But the trade-wind freshened, and his strength was not equal to the task set for it. With the men all aloft and the two mates forward, the ship nearly broached to one day, and only the opportune arrival of Captain Bacon on deck saved the spars. He seized the wheel, ground it up, and the ship paid off; then a whole man was called to relieve him, and the incompetent helmsman was promptly and properly punished. He was kicked off the poop, and his arm, as a consequence, needed resetting.
Johnson had been aloft, but there was murder in his dark eyes when he came down at supper-time. Yet he knew its futility, and while bandaging the broken arm earnestly explained, as Breen's groans would allow, that if he killed one the other two would kill him, and nothing would be gained. "For they've brass knuckles in their pockets, sir," he said, "and pistols under their pillows. We haven't even sheath-knives, and the crew wouldn't help."
Whereupon, an inspired Russian Finn of the watch remarked: "If a man know his work an' do his work, an' gif no back lip to te mates, he get no trupple mit te mates. In my country ships——" The dissertation was not finished. Johnson silently knocked him down, and the incident closed.
But they found work which the crippled man could do, after a short "lying up." With the steward's washboard, he could wash the captain's soiled linen, which the steward would afterward wring out and hang up. He refused at first, but was duly persuaded, and went to work in the lee scuppers amidships. Johnson made a detour on his way to the main-rigging, and muttered: "Say the word, sir, and I 'll chance it. No jury'd convict."
"No, no; go aloft, Johnson. I'm all right," answered Breen, as he bent over the distasteful task.
Johnson climbed the rigging to the main-royalyard, which he was to scrape for reoiling, and had no sooner reached it than he sang out:
"Sail oh! Dead ahead, sir. Looks like an armored cruiser o' the first class."
"Armored cruiser o' the first class?" muttered the captain, as he carried his binoculars to the weather rail and looked ahead. "More 'n I can make out with the glasses."
If three funnels, two masts, two bridges, and two sets of fighting-tops indicate an armored cruiser of the first class, Johnson was right. These the oncoming craft showed plainly even at seven miles' distance. Fifteen minutes later she was storming by, a half-mile to windward; a beautiful picture, long and white, with an incurving ram-bow, with buff-colored turrets and superstructure, and black guns bristling from all parts of her. The Stars and Stripes flew from the flagstaff at the stern; white-clad men swarmed about her decks, and one of them, on the forward bridge, close to a group of officers, was waving by its staff a small red-and-white flag. Captain Bacon brought out the American ensign, and with his own hands hoisted it to the monkey-gaff on the mizzen, dipped it three times in respectful salute, and left it at the gaff-end. Then he looked at the cruiser, as every man on board was doing except the man washing clothes in the lee scuppers. His business was to wash clothes, not to cross a broad deck and climb a high rail to look at passing craft; but, as he washed away, he looked furtively aloft, with eyes that sparkled, at the man on the mainroyalyard. Johnson was standing erect on the small spar, holding on with his left hand to the royal-pole,—certainly the most conspicuous detail of the whole ship to the eyes of those on board the cruiser,—and with his right hand he was waving his cap to the right and left, and up and down. There was method in his motions, for when he would cease, the small red-and-white flag on the cruiser's bridge would answer, waving to the right and left, and up and down.