I was thinking how easy it would be to desert the ship at Providence Harbour, in the Bahamas, and return to the States. It was but a few days’ run from there to Savannah, and plenty of small vessels would be bound over at this time of the year. It was degrading to have to polish brass like a common foremast hand. However, if I tired of it, I was really only working my way home. That was the best way to look at it. But the thought of home changed the half-formed purpose. What was there in the name for me? Only a poor old mother living in a bit of a house, with a negro girl I had brought from Jamaica some years before. They were dependent entirely upon me and the little money I had saved to eke out an existence, the girl doing all the work and caring for the aged mother. If I went back, there would be only one more to draw on the small hoard, and I might not get another berth very soon. Here was a very proper ship, rigged almost like a man-o’-war, and evidently bound on some special mission. Perhaps there was money to be made. At all events, there would be little lost by staying in her, for the pay in American ships was almost as poor as the English.
While I thought over these matters, I watched the two passengers, who were lounging aft on the quarter, smoking long clay pipes and drinking ale from a tankard filled from a keg in the lazarette. They certainly appeared well-to-do people, and, if they were part-owners, there was little doubt from their manners that they were used to living as gentlemen of wealth and position.
Bill came down from aloft along the weather main-rigging above me, where he had been fastening chafing-gear on the backstays at the point the topsail-yard would touch. He saw me gazing aft while I rubbed, and he dropped somewhat ostentatiously upon the deck to attract my attention.
“Welcome, hey?” he said.
“Of course,” I answered, holding out a greasy hand. “Why not?”
“Well, I’ve no grudge, John,” said he. “You licked me fair enough.”
“You haven’t come for another one?” I asked, smiling.
“No,” he said, grasping my fingers in a tarry grip, “no, I believe you’re all right. I youst wanted to ask what you t’ought of the passengers. They say they’re part-owners. Now, I’ve been in American ships ten years and more, an’ I never t’ought to go in a wessel not knowin’ youst where she’s bound, did you?”
“How did you come to ship in her?” I asked.
“Oh, I signed all right. I youst saw she was a fine wessel an’ the pay good,--more’n a mate of an old country wessel,--so I t’ought it all right. Only I’d youst like to find out, friend John, where she’s bound for,--I mean what port.”