"Once at sea and the job's complete. Hallo, there, send down a whip into the boat," he cried. "I've got them two as skipped. And good men, too, when they're sober."
He heard the first mate bellow:
"Mr. Jones, get these swine on board quick. Drunk, are they? We'll sober 'em. Up aloft and loose the topsails."
And the two lights of San Francisco society were carried into the foc'sle.
"Blimy, but I'd give sumfink to be as blind speechless as this," said one cockney, "and there ain't no chance of it till we gets to London."
But the mate was roaring overhead. They dropped Hunt and Gawthrop into two empty bunks and went on deck.
"Can't you turn those men to?" asked the chief mate, Mr. Ladd, of Jones. And Jones went into the foc'sle and punched both of these gentlemen in the ribs.
"Wake up, you drunken galoots," said Jones.
In answer they both sighed and snored, and turned peaceably to rest. Jones, who knew a bit, unhooked the lamp from the sweating beam overhead, and lifting Hunt's eyelid with his thumb, saw that the man's pupil was down to a pin-point. It was the same with Gawthrop.
"Hocussed, of course," he said. And he reported aft that not even putting them under the hose would wake them for some hours.