Raimundo was one of those whom this nautical institution had saved to be a blessing, instead of a curse, to the community; but he was truly reformed, and, over and above his duty as an officer, he was sincerely desirous to save the “marines” from the error of their ways. He did not expect them to uncover their plans all at once, and he was willing to watch and wait.
Having viewed the marines from the officer’s side of the question, we will enter into the counsels of those who were the subjects of this official scrutiny. After the first few months of life in the squadron, these four fellows had been discontented and dissatisfied. They had been transferred from one vessel to another, in the hope that they might find their appropriate sphere; but there seemed to be no sphere below—at least, as far as they had gone—where they could revolve and shine. They had been “sticks,” wherever they were. One country seemed to be about the same as any other to them. They did not like to study; they did not like to “knot and splice;” they did not like to stand watch; they did not like to read even stories, fond as they were of yarns of the coarser sort; they did not like to do any thing but eat, sleep, and loaf about the deck, or, on shore, but to dissipate and indulge in rowdyism. Two of them had been transferred to the Tritonia from the Prince at Genoa, and the other two had been in the schooner but two months.
“I’m as tired as death of this sort of thing,” said Bill Stout, the oldest and biggest fellow of the four.
“I had enough of it in a month after I came on board,” added Ben Pardee, who was lying flat on his back, and gazing listlessly up into the clear blue sky; “but what can a fellow do?”
“Nothing at all,” replied Lon Gibbs. “It’s the same thing from morning to night, from one week’s end to the other.”
“Can’t we get up some sort of an excitement?” asked Bark Lingall, whose first name was Barclay.
“We have tried it on too many times,” answered Ben Pardee, who was perhaps the most prudent of the four. “We never make out any thing. The fellows in the Tritonia are a lot of spoonies, and are afraid to say their souls are their own.”
“They are good little boys, lambs of the chaplain’s fold,” sneered Lon Gibbs. “There is nothing like fun in them.”
“We are almost at the end of the cruise, at any rate,” said Bark Lingall, who seemed to derive great comfort from the fact. “This slavery is almost at an end.”
“I don’t know about that,” added Bill Stout.