This was all fun for us, who stood by, winking at each other, and enjoying the contest between the higher powers. The captain took the mate aft; and they had a long talk, which ended in the mate's returning to his duty. The captain had broken through a custom, which is a part of the common law of a ship, and without reason, for he knew that his mate was a sailor, and needed no help from him; and the mate was excusable for being angry. Yet, in strict law, he was wrong, and the captain right. Whatever the captain does is right, ipso facto, and any opposition to it is wrong on board ship; and every officer and man knows this when he signs the ship's articles. It is a part of the contract. Yet there has grown up in merchant vessels a series of customs, which have become a well-understood system, and have somewhat the force of prescriptive law. To be sure, all power is in the captain, and the officers hold their authority only during his will, and the men are liable to be called upon for any service; yet, by breaking in upon these usages, many difficulties have occurred on board ship, and even come into courts of justice, which are perfectly unintelligible to any one not acquainted with the universal nature and force of these customs. Many a provocation has been offered, and a system of petty oppression pursued towards men, the force and meaning of which would appear as nothing to strangers, and doubtless do appear so to many ``'long-shore'' juries and judges.
The next little diversion was a battle on the forecastle, one afternoon, between the mate and the steward. They had been on bad terms the whole voyage, and had threatened a rupture several times. Once, on the coast, the mate had seized the steward, when the steward suddenly lowered his head, and pitched it straight into Mr. Brown's stomach, butting him against the galley, grunting at every shove, and calling out ``You Brown!'' Mr. Brown looked white in the face, and the heaviest blows he could give seemed to have no effect on the negro's head. He was pulled off by the second mate, and Mr. Brown was going at him again, when the captain separated them; and Mr. Brown told his tale to the captain, adding ``and, moreover, he called me Brown!'' From this time ``moreover, he called me Brown,'' became a by-word on board. Mr. Brown went aft, saying, ``I've promised it to you, and now you've got it.'' But he did not seem to be sure which had ``got it''; nor did we. We knew Mr. Brown would not leave the thing in that equivocal position all the voyage, if he could help it. This afternoon the mate asked the steward for a tumbler of water, and he refused to get it for him, saying that he waited upon nobody but the captain; and here he had the custom on his side. But, in answering, he committed the unpardonable offence of leaving off the handle to the mate's name. This enraged the mate, who called him a ``black soger,'' and at it they went, clenching, striking, and rolling over and over; while we stood by, looking on and enjoying the fun. The darkey tried to butt him, as before, but the mate got him down, and held him, the steward singing out, ``Let me go, Mr. Brown, or there'll be blood spilt!'' In the midst of this, the captain came on deck, separated them, took the steward aft, and gave him half a dozen with a rope's end. The steward tried to justify himself, but he had been heard to talk of spilling blood, and that was enough to earn him his flogging; and the captain did not choose to inquire any further. Mr. Brown was satisfied to let him alone after that, as he had, on the whole, vindicated his superiority in the eyes of the crew.
CHAPTER XXXIV
The same day, I met with one of those narrow escapes which are so often happening in a sailor's life. I had been aloft nearly all the afternoon, at work, standing for as much as an hour on the fore top-gallant yard, which was hoisted up, and hung only by the tie; when, having got through my work, I balled up my yarns, took my serving-board in my hand, laid hold deliberately of the top-gallant rigging, took one foot from the yard, and was just lifting the other, when the tie parted, and down the yard fell. I was safe, by my hold upon the rigging, but it made my heart beat quick. Had the tie parted one instant sooner, or had I stood an instant longer on the yard, I should inevitably have been thrown violently from the height of ninety or a hundred feet, overboard; or, what is worse, upon the deck. However, ``a miss is as good as a mile''; a saying which sailors very often have occasion to use. An escape is always a joke on board ship. A man would be ridiculed who should make a serious matter of it. A sailor knows too well that his life hangs upon a thread, to wish to be often reminded of it; so, if a man has an escape, he keeps it to himself, or makes a joke of it. I have often known a man's life to be saved by an instant of time, or by the merest chance,— the swinging of a rope,— and no notice taken of it. One of our boys, off Cape Horn, reefing topsails of a dark night when there were no boats to be lowered away, and where, if a man fell overboard, he must be left behind, lost his hold of the reef-point, slipped from the foot-rope, and would have been in the water in a moment, when the man who was next to him on the yard, French John, caught him by the collar of his jacket, and hauled him up upon the yard, with, ``Hold on, another time, you young monkey, and be d—-d to you!''— and that was all that was heard about it.
Sunday, August 7th. Lat. 25° 59' S., lon. 27° 0' W. Spoke the English bark Mary Catherine, from Bahia, bound to Calcutta. This was the first sail we had fallen in with, and the first time we had seen a human form or heard the human voice, except of our own number, for nearly a hundred days. The very yo-ho-ing of the sailors at the ropes sounded sociably upon the ear. She was an old, damaged-looking craft, with a high poop and top-gallant forecastle, and sawed off square, stem and stern, like a true English ``tea-wagon,'' and with a run like a sugar-box. She had studding-sails out alow and aloft, with a light but steady breeze, and her captain said he could not get more than four knots out of her, and thought he should have a long passage. We were going six on an easy bowline.
The next day, about three P.M., passed a large corvette-built ship, close upon the wind, with royals and skysails set fore and aft, under English colors. She was standing south-by-east, probably bound round Cape Horn. She had men in her tops, and black mast-heads; heavily sparred, with sails cut to a t, and other marks of a man-of-war. She sailed well, and presented a fine appearance; the proud, feudal-looking banner of St. George— the cross in a blood-red field— waving from the mizzen. We probably were nearly as fine a sight, with our studding-sails spread far out beyond the ship on either side, and rising in a pyramid to royal studding-sails and skysails, burying the hull in canvas and looking like what the whalemen on the Banks, under their stump top-gallant-masts, call ``a Cape Horn-er under a cloud of sail.''
Friday, August 12th. At daylight made the island of Trinidad, situated in lat. 20° 28' S., lon. 29° 08' W. At twelve M., it bore N.W. 1/2 N., distant twenty-seven miles. It was a beautiful day, the sea hardly ruffled by the light trades, and the island looking like a small blue mound rising from a field of glass. Such a fair and peaceful-looking spot is said to have been, for a long time, the resort of a band of pirates, who ravaged the tropical seas.
Thursday, August 18th. At three P.M., made the island of Fernando Naronha, lying in lat. 3° 55' S., lon. 32° 35' W.; and between twelve o'clock Friday night and one o'clock Saturday morning crossed the equator, for the fourth time since leaving Boston, in lon. 35° W.; having been twenty-seven days from Staten Land,— a distance, by the courses we had made, of more than four thousand miles.
We were now to the northward of the line, and every day added to our latitude. The Magellan Clouds, the last sign of south latitude, had long been sunk, and the North Star, the Great Bear, and the familiar signs of northern latitudes, were rising in the heavens. Next to seeing land, there is no sight which makes one realize more that he is drawing near home, than to see the same heavens, under which he was born, shining at night over his head. The weather was extremely hot, with the usual tropical alternations of a scorching sun and squalls of rain; yet not a word was said in complaint of the heat, for we all remembered that only three or four weeks before we would have given our all to be where we now were. We had a plenty of water, too, which we caught by spreading an awning, with shot thrown in to make hollows. These rain squalls came up in the manner usual between the tropics. A clear sky; burning, vertical sun; work going lazily on, and men about decks with nothing but duck trousers, checked shirts, and straw hats; the ship moving as lazily through the water; the man at the helm resting against the wheel, with his hat drawn over his eyes; the captain below, taking an afternoon nap; the passenger leaning over the taffrail, watching a dolphin following slowly in our wake; the sailmaker mending an old topsail on the lee side of the quarter-deck; the carpenter working at his bench, in the waist; the boys making sinnet; the spun-yarn winch whizzing round and round, and the men walking slowly fore and aft with the yarns. A cloud rises to windward, looking a little black; the skysails are brailed down; the captain puts his head out of the companion-way, looks at the cloud, comes up, and begins to walk the deck. The cloud spreads and comes on; the tub of yarns, the sail, and other matters, are thrown below, and the sky-light and booby-hatch put on, and the slide drawn over the forecastle. ``Stand by the royal halyards''; and the man at the wheel keeps a good weather helm, so as not to be taken aback. The squall strikes her. If it is light, the royal yards are clewed down, and the ship keeps on her way; but if the squall takes strong hold, the royals are clewed up, fore and aft; light hands lay aloft and furl them; top-gallant yards are clewed down, flying-jib hauled down, and the ship kept off before it,— the man at the helm laying out his strength to heave the wheel up to windward. At the same time a drenching rain, which soaks one through in an instant. Yet no one puts on a jacket or cap; for if it is only warm, a sailor does not mind a ducking; and the sun will soon be out again. As soon as the force of the squall has passed, though to a common eye the ship would seem to be in the midst of it,— ``Keep her up to her course again!''— ``Keep her up, sir,'' (answer.)[1]— ``Hoist away the top-gallant yards!''— ``Run up the flying-jib!''— ``Lay aloft, you boys, and loose the royals!'' and all sail is on her again before she is fairly out of the squall; and she is going on in her course. The sun comes out once more, hotter than ever, dries up the decks and the sailors' clothes; the hatches are taken off; the sail got up and spread on the quarter-deck; spun-yarn winch set a whirling again; rigging coiled up; captain goes below; and every sign of an interruption disappears.
These scenes, with occasional dead calms, lasting for hours, and sometimes for days, are fair specimens of the Atlantic tropics. The nights were fine; and as we had all hands all day, the watch were allowed to sleep on deck at night, except the man at the wheel, and one lookout on the forecastle. This was not so much expressly allowed as winked at. We could do it if we did not ask leave. If the lookout was caught napping, the whole watch was kept awake. We made the most of this permission, and stowed ourselves away upon the rigging, under the weather rail, on the spars, under the windlass, and in all the snug corners; and frequently slept out the watch, unless we had a wheel or a lookout. And we were glad enough to get this rest; for under the ``all-hands'' system, out of every other thirty-six hours we had only four below; and even an hour's sleep was a gain not to be neglected. One would have thought so to have seen our watch some nights, sleeping through a heavy rain. And often have we come on deck, and, finding a dead calm and a light, steady rain, and determined not to lose our sleep, have laid a coil of rigging down so as to keep us out of the water which was washing about decks, and stowed ourselves away upon it, covering a jacket over us, and slept as soundly as a Dutchman between two feather-beds.