The tears were rolling down Artie Jenkins’s cheeks, and he was begging like a child. Hamilton Haley eyed him with a contempt that could not be expressed in words. But there was no suggestion of relenting in his gaze.
“Of course it’s a joke, Artie,” he said, sneeringly. “It’s a joke, all right, and it’s what I call a downright good one. Ha! ha! A joke, eh? Well, if it isn’t a joke, I’d like to know what they call one.” Then his voice grew louder and more threatening as he continued. “It’s a joke like some of those jokes you’ve been a-playing on Bill and me for the last eight years.”
Haley clenched his fist and shook it at the cowering youth. “That’s the sort of a joke it is,” he continued; “it’s like them ere jokes of yours as have been costing me and Bill ten dollars apiece. Good, able-bodied, rugged men for dredging that we’ve paid for in honest, hard-earned money—and what have they turned out to be when we gets ’em down the bay? A lot of counter-jumpers and boys that get sick on us with a week’s work at the winders. That’s what!
“Now you get up and quit snivelling and go for’ard; and don’t you make any fuss, or you’ll never get back to Baltimore, as sure as my name’s Haley. Here, Jim, show him where he’ll bunk.”
Jim Adams, seizing the shrinking form of Artie Jenkins by the convenient collar, dragged him forth from the cabin. True to his method, Jim Adams assumed his customary mock politeness.
“Be jes’ so kind as to walk for’ard, Mister Jenkins,” he said, and turned the young man toward the forecastle. A recklessness, inspired by desperation, seized upon Artie Jenkins. He wrenched violently at the hand that held him, and for a moment freed himself.
“I won’t go down into that dirty forecastle,” he cried. “You can’t make me.”
Jim Adams’s bony hand again grasped him and spun him around till his head swam. At the same time, a short piece of rope swung by the mate sang in the air, and Artie Jenkins felt the sharp sting of it across his shoulders. A series of blows followed, mingled with the scoffing words of the mate.
“Won’t you please ’blige me by stepping down into that fo’castle, Mister Jenkins?” he said. “I’s sorry to trouble you, but I wish you’d jes’ step down to ’blige me.”
Artie Jenkins, under the merciless lash of the mate, lost little time in obeying. Cringing and crying, he darted down into the dark, damp forecastle and stowed himself away in the first available bunk. The taunting words of the mate sounded in his ears for a moment: “Thank you, Mister Jenkins; I’m much ’bliged to you, sah. You saves me the trouble of using force to carry out the orders of Cap’n Haley, sah.”