"What are you doing in there?" said Mr. Howard.
"I've been to get a chew of tobacco, sir," said Dan.
The second mate gave him a few rounds of curses, and then struck him over the forehead with the holystone, which flew into pieces, breaking in the middle from the force of the blow. Dan's head was not much the worse for it though, and he went back to his work apparently unharmed.
The captain came on deck soon after, and while overseeing the work as usual, he spied the broken stone.
"How did that stone get broken?" he asked of Mr. Howard.
"I just broke it over that nigger's head, sir."
"Did you, really? He must have a tough head. What was it for?"
"Because he left his work and went into the forecastle," said Mr. Howard.
"That's right. Keep 'em up to the work; don't take a word from 'em, or if one of 'em dares give you a black look, just pick up the cook's axe and split his skull open!"
All this was said in a loud tone for the benefit of the men, and the second mate was so much encouraged by this endorsement, that the same day he broke a deck-bucket against another sailor's head, who gave him a "black look," and as a boy was coiling up a rope in a larger coil than he fancied, he sang out to him: