On Board the "Rocket"

by Robert C. Adams

"Yes; so I did," said Mr. Howard, "and instead of doing it you must go to skylarking with the man at the wheel. The 'old man' has licked you for fooling on the poop, and now I owe you something for not doing what I told you to."

Without further words he struck Taylor on the face with a belaying-pin, and followed it up with several blows in the same place. The boy's shrieks brought the mate forward; but by the time he had reached the spot, the damage was done, and the boy lay fainting upon the fore-hatch with his face covered with blood.

The worthy mate, as soon as he comprehended the matter, burst out with some expressions more forcible than elegant, and said to the second mate:

"Mr. Howard, there's nothing of the man about you. You're a disgrace to the very name of a man. An officer that would treat a boy like that ought to be keel-hauled."

The second mate sneaked away aft, leaving the mate to take care of the boy.

The next day the captain missed Taylor from the deck, and hearing that he had laid up, sent for him. He appeared with his face so swollen and discolored that no one could have recognized him. Capt. Streeter was quite shocked by the case, and gave him proper lotions from the medicine-chest. He took a private opportunity to tell Mr. Howard that he had been rather too severe this time; but avoided any public reproach of him, not wishing to give any further encouragement to Mr. Morrison's hostility.

In all this time I was getting along pretty well. The crew had fighting enough from the other officers to keep them in respectful awe of "the powers that be" without much need of my using my fists against them, though the captain kept up his system of alternate persecutions and insinuating stories, all designed to make me such an officer as he thought I ought to be.

The mate was treated with all the contempt that the captain dared to show him, and his naturally irritable temper was by no means soothed by this feature of his situation. I sometimes had good proof of this by receiving a snappish rebuke for some fault or omission detected by the mate's keen eyes. But apart from a momentary exasperation, this had no great effect on my spirits, for I accepted such occurrences as the inevitable portion of a third mate, and was only thankful that my share was no larger than it was.

As for actual pleasure in the course of my duties, that was something I had learned not to expect on board the "Dublin." The sole idea of the ship as the captain endeavored to direct it, was work, work, and every job, whether of putting on a seizing or sweeping the deck, was to be done with the interest and thoroughness which would attend a matter of life or death. Nothing that was ship's duty could be called trivial, and if a shaving took refuge under a spare spar, escaping the boy's broom, it demanded as great an outcry as one would suppose belonged to one, who had scuttled the ship. In fact it generally received it, for if the shaving escaped the officer's eye, it was pretty sure to meet the captain's glance, for he was very particular after clearing-up time to search for something, which would give him opportunity to find fault with his officers, and show them they had not done their duty.