He said the last part of his speech with just a suspicion of a smile lurking about the corners of his mouth, and I was not in the humour to be laughed at.
“All right, my cock,” said I, “if you are one of the officers and know the destination of this hooker, you will oblige me by telling me her port of destination. If you don’t, I might be tempted to argue the question with you. You are not pretty, Peter, when you smile.”
“Don’t think I would tackle you, Heywood,” said he, looking sternly at me. “You’ve been aboard a fighting craft, and know just what I’ll do if you don’t turn to when I say. I don’t know any more about this vessel than you do, except--well, except that I wouldn’t have picked her out as a choice of ships. If you had used your eyes before you signed on, you could have seen she was something irregular. Brace up and do what you’re told until you find out what you’re in for.”
Then he went along to get the rest of the crew.
The men who had temporarily gone below to get their morning meal, and who had remained below as the port watch, were now lined up with those on deck, and Hawkson began by choosing a huge fellow named Jones. He was a big, burly, red-headed Welshman. Then Gull chose Bill in spite of his appearance. And so it went until each had an equal number of men on a side, Jorg going into the starboard, and myself into the port watch, for we were in the forecastle with the rest, while Richards slung his hammock in Hawkson’s room. I started on the forward guns, and spent the rest of the day polishing.
The weather was fine and it was exhilarating to sit in the gun-port to windward and watch the old barque go. The land had now entirely disappeared to the eastward, and we were rapidly drawing off.
The barque was very fast. With a breeze of not more than twelve knots, she was running a full nine knots, seeming hardly to disturb the smooth sea. Her wake was clean, and only the steady pouring of her bow-wave whitened her path.
I sat for hours rubbing the muzzles of the guns with whale-oil and dust, and, as I did so, I watched the flaking foam of the side-wash spread away with its musical hiss and tinkle. Down deep in the blue below a piece of weed now and then flashed past, looking like an eel or snake as the sunlight wavered upon it. It was a warm, lazy day, and I pondered long upon the strange turn of fortune that had suddenly placed me upon the old barque with her sinister past and mysterious future. Here she was all fitted out for a long voyage, but without any cargo to speak of, and that little stowed in such a manner that it was easy of access.
I gazed aloft at the fine rigging, and noted how well her canvas was cut. Every sail was fitted as aboard a man-o’-war, and all her running gear was of new hemp line of the finest grade, totally unlike the loose laid stuff they used for clew-lines, bunt-lines, leach-lines, and even braces aboard the ordinary western ocean merchantmen. Hawkson had the yards trimmed in a shipshape and seamanlike manner, and the grease or varnish upon them brought out the grain of the wood. They were large for a vessel of five hundred ton. High above, the mainroyal swung across a cloud-flecked zenith, a small white strip, while beneath, in regular rotation, stretched the t’gallantsail, topsail, and mainsail into increasing size until across the main-yard the distance must have been full seventy feet or more.
The breeze hummed and droned under the foot of the great mainsail, sounding restful and pleasant with the easy roll of the vessel.