That was on one of my bilious days. For I had not seemed to get over the knocking about and sea-sickness of the first week.
Then, as we got further south into the hot waters, the living on board didn’t agree with me. You see that’s a good many years ago, before the days of preserved meat and vegetables; and salt beef—or horse—and ancient pork out of a pickle-tub, with pease pudding, constituted all the delicacies of our season, except the flinty biscuit and salt butter, which never came welcome to a man, who dearly loved a hot roll and a bit of best fresh.
Of course, you know I’m talking of the days when convicts were sent out to Botany Bay, as they call it, before the Suez Canal and the great steamers made a journey to the Antipodes a pleasure trip.
Our journey was in a big transport—a three-masted, full-rigged ship, fitted up with quarters for the “lags,” as they call ’em; a good strong warder guard; and a company of Her Majesty’s Noughty Noughth, not armed with Martini-Henry rifles, but with the old-fashioned Brown Bess musket muzzle-loaders, you know, with bright ramrods, and each man carrying so many rounds of ball cartridge, that he had to bite, and a little pouch at his waist, to hold so many big percussion caps.
Our voyage was round by the Cape, and then down south, to catch the great currents and favorable winds; and, much sail as our ship carried, the rate at which we went was a regular crawl, giving plenty of time for the men to get troublesome and discontented, with the consequence that a couple of them were flogged.
Bird—“Gaol Bird,” as I called him, though his name was Richard—Dick—Pretty Dick, eh?—he was one; and you should have seen his round, close-cropped bullet-head, and big jaw.
If an artist had come to me and said, “Do you know of a man whom I could sketch as a specimen of a regular rogue?” I shouldn’t have hesitated for a moment—“Dick Bird” I should have said; “only, if you do draw him, have him chained up, and then don’t go too near, as he might knock you down and jump on you, to finish you, with his heavy boots.”
I suppose, Dick got it into his head, that I reported him for his promotion and stripes; and while his back was getting well, he used to smile at me in a queer sort of way, as if the cat had got into his nature, as well as across his back.
There were several little things, that ought to have made me see that a storm was brewing; but it’s a way with human nature to imagine trouble and ruin, where there’s none, and to be very blind where there is. ’Tis our manner to, I suppose, and has to do with the way we were made.
I saw nothing, my mates saw nothing. We were used to convicts, and we did our duty, seeing that the men did their work, and taking pretty good care that their irons were all right, and that our locks and bolts were well shot home.