Mr. Briggs, the chief mate, implored him to go a bit easy. 'She's new to it, sir, and we're not settled down and set up the way she should be yet.'
'I'll show you,' said Balaam. 'If she ain't what she should be it's your fault. You're the mate, ain't you?'
But if the mate is responsible for the rigging the skipper is responsible for trying it, and Balaam drank hard and tried it high.
'I'd rather fetch into Hobson's Bay under jury rig than let that swine lick us,' said Balaam thickly. 'Mr. Briggs, h'ist that main-t'gall'ns'l over the reefed taups'l and let her scoot!'
If they hadn't once more lost each other in a screaming south-easter the catastrophe might have come right then. It was only when the Scanderbeg was swallowed up in thick weather and the night that Balaam got so drunk that Briggs ventured to shorten sail.
'I wish he'd keep drunk,' said Briggs bitterly to the second greaser.
'Ah, his bein' only squiffy is very tryin', sir,' replied Mr. Creak. 'It strikes me, sir, that the men are gettin' disgruntled at the way he keeps things goin'. They're beginnin' to want a lot of driving.'
'Then drive 'em,' said Briggs shortly. He was being driven himself.
The crowd for'ard were really very sore about everything. They had no particular grievance; that is, they only had seamen's grievances. The vessel was undermanned. Well, all British ships are. What's the good of an Englishman if he can't do more than any one else? They were, of course, badly fed. That was nothing: nothing even that it steadily grew worse. What hurt them was Balaam's way of looking at them. An Italian might have said he had the evil eye. They didn't mind his evil tongue. The truth is that Balaam was sand in their bearings; they got hot to think of him. They compared him with Captain Wood.
'That's a man,' said Charlie Baker; 'a real one.'