“Vat you do, hein? Vill you kill me, den?” he screamed, and he lashed out with a right good-will, knocking two of the men down.
I saw O’Toole grinning, and as I was the mate, it was not my place to see too much. The big Irishman would take care of the fracas when the time came to interfere. I made my way around the deck-house out of sight, and sent a man after a new halyard.
The moke in the galley was hard at it in an argument with the steward. I saw and heard nothing. The work forward had been started, and all was well.
CHAPTER IV.
I went aft on the quarter-deck where Captain Crojack stood eying the towering cloud of snowy canvas, from the foot of the mainsail to the skysail yards.
“By gorry, Mr. Gore,” said he, “we’ve got a good start, and if the wind holds we’ll make a good offing during the night. I suppose you’ve met my passengers before?” and he motioned toward Miss Waters and her mother who stood near the companionway. They were apparently admiring everything about the ship except her sudden lurches, which caused them to make sundry clutches for support.
I bowed and spoke to them, but the young girl was so absorbed in the new scene before her that she said little except that it was “perfectly lovely,” while the mother began to show signs of paleness coupled with a nervous catching of the breath at each roll of the ship.
“She’s got a good lively feel to her, don’t you think?” went on the skipper, referring to his vessel. “The only thing that worried me was the stowing of all that marble and stuff amidships, and so much iron in her ends.”
As he spoke, the ship gave a jerk and tremble, throwing the sea from her weather-bow in a smother and going through it like a half-tide rock in a strong current.
There was no earthly use of disagreeing with him, so I said nothing, knowing full well he had overloaded his vessel by three or four hundred tons in order to make the extra freight money.