"The fighting stopped now, I hardly know how. But several of the sailors were 'ended over' on deck with broken heads, and some of us were at the main-hatch keeping clear of the 'muss.' I believe the rest gave it up and ran forward of the foremast.
"The 'old man' kept singing out his orders, and at last the mate went aft and had some words with him, while we went to work and saved the pieces. The man at the wheel said the mate cursed the 'old man' all up in a heap, and told him to go below and he'd look out for the ship, and after a little jaw, the captain backed down and went into the cabin. We blew away a lot of sails that night; one topmast and two top-gallant stu'n'sails, a flying-jib, main-topmast staysail, fore royal, and broke off the foretopmast stu'n'sail-boom, which tore an awful big hole in the foresail. I guess if the owner knew how much that fight cost him he would be still more of a sailors' friend. I never could quite account for the officers not taking in sail sooner, unless it was they had been drinking.
"Besides having all hands, we used to be kept going all night long in the watch on deck, and after we got round the Cape into the south-east trades we had to work every minute, either doing necessary duty, or else performing military drill with handspikes, or something of that sort. Night times our principal work was polishing the iron belaying-pins and eye-bolts, for when we went into 'Frisco' every piece of iron-work about deck shone like silver. We all had our stations rubbing the iron with our sheath-knives, and every half hour, when the bell struck, we had to call out like sentinels. This is the way it would go: First, the man on the forward house, who was polishing the cook's stove-pipe, would sing out: 'Cook's stove-pipe, one bell and all's well!' Then would come, 'Starboard main-topmast staysail sheet iron belaying-pin, one bell and all's well;' 'starboard eye-bolts main-rigging;' 'strap of main-topsail halyard block;' and so on. When all the workmen had sung out, you'd hear, 'Starboard handspike gangway sentinel, one bell and all's well;' and then the port side the same. These were two men that had to walk with shouldered handspikes on the bridges that went from the top of the after-house to the boat's gallows. At the last the mate would hail the skysail-yard, and a voice would come down, 'Man in the moon, one bell and all's well.' This would be some unlucky chap who was lowest down in the mate's good graces, but got kept highest up in the air.
"That was the way every half hour at night when we were not pulling and hauling. You wouldn't think men would stand such nonsense? I assure you they did though, and they didn't dare to growl even in the forecastle, for there was some one prowling about outside, pretty often, listening to what was said; and if a man growled he was very apt to get licked next watch. The second mate gave one man an awful thrashing, for no other reason I believe than because he overheard him saying in his watch below, 'This is a humbugging old workhouse.'
"There were lots of other moves they put up with. There were five or six men in our watch that didn't know much, and the mate took a particular fancy to hazing them. One morning he came forward with some canvas for fools' caps, and made these men sew them in their watch below. Then he took some empty flour barrels, knocked the heads out, and cut holes each side of the top. We all wondered what was to pay now, and at night we found out. He called these men aft, made them put on the fools' caps and dismount one of the guns that stood by the after-hatch. Then each man got into a barrel and ran his arms through the holes, so that he had a kind of wooden shirt on. The mate made a rope fast to the gun-carriage, and taking his seat, he made the men grab the rope and haul him fore and aft the deck. He sat on the carriage, holding a long stick with a sail-needle in the end, with which he pricked up all the men he could reach, wherever the barrels didn't protect them, and he cursed the rest in a way that hurt most as bad."
"Mr. Bangs, didn't the captain have anything to say to all this?" I asked.
"Not that I know of. I believe it just suited him. He didn't do any fighting himself, but he'd get on top of the house and everlastingly curse us."
"Did you ever get struck?" I asked.
"No sir."
"I suppose not," said I. "I never heard a man tell a yarn yet about a wild ship, but he always went clear himself."