I was irritated and had just about concluded to put in a word to help the conversation, and was starting toward them, when Crojack put down his night-glass with an impatient jerk.
“Where in thunder is that fellow heading?” he asked, turning and looking at me. “If he keeps on, he’ll be aboard us in an hour or two.
“It’s just the way with some of those thick-headed Englishmen! They’ll come drifting down on you in a dead calm, and, before you know it, they’ll be afoul of you and tear half the stunsails out of you, to say nothing of breaking the booms. It’s nigh eight bells, so suppose you call the second mate and tell him to bring his speaking-trumpet and hail the fellow. To run foul of a ship during a blow is bad enough, but to run foul of one during a calm means that we might lay alongside for a week and roll everything out of us aloft, stunsail-booms and all.”
Brown instantly started with me as I went forward, for the skipper brought his eye to bear on him and saw he was becoming unnautical with his niece. I sent him to call O’Toole.
“Wants me ter hail him, hey?” growled the red-headed giant, as he tumbled out on the main-deck. “B’ th’ sowl av Saint Patrick, jist hearken ter me. If thim illigant leddies av his are below, ye will hear me talk Spanish t’ th’ bloody Englishmen, sich as ye niver heard before nor since. Hello! Wait a minit—” and the second mate, catching a glimpse of a dress in the moonlight, dived below again in a hurry.
As he had turned out just as he turned in, he had forgotten, in his eagerness, to put on his trousers.
He appeared again in a few minutes better attired for the quarter-deck. Then, growling something not very complimentary to passengers in general, he came aft.
“Hail that fellow and tell him to stand off before he drifts afoul of us,” said the skipper. “Tell him there’s room enough on the Western Ocean without crowding.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered O’Toole, as he walked to the rail and glared fiercely at the stranger astern.
“S’ o—o—hoy!” he roared, in a voice like a fog-horn, and then stopped to listen.