"It's precious bad work that, Joe," said the old boatswain's mate, shaking his head. "A fellow in an open sea may do somut to claw to wind'ard; but when you're dead upon a lee-shore, it's time to look for your bag. But what did you do, Joe?"
"Why, what could I do, shipmate, but to take another nip at the canteen," responded Joe; "it was all I had in life to hould on by, with a heavy gale strong enough to blow the devil's horns off, and the breakers all round me: my eyes! but it was a reg'lar sneezer. 'Howsomever,' thinks I, 'it won't do, Joe, to be hove down here for a full due—you must at it again, ould chap;' and so I tries to make sail again, and heaves ahead a few fathoms, when down I comes again into a deep hole, and, before you could say Jack Robison, I'm blow'd if I warn't right slap in the middle of a large underground wault, where there was a company o' genelmen stuck up in niches, and peeping over mummy-cases, with great candles in their hands; and in other respects looking for all the world like the forty thieves as I once seed at the play, peeping out of their oil-jars; and there was a scuffling and scrimmaging at t'other eend o' the wault: and, 'Yo hoy!' says I, 'what cheer—what cheer, my hearties!' but not nobody never spoke, and the genelmen in the niches seemed to my thinking to be all groggy, and I'm blessed if ever I seed sich a set o' baboon-visaged fellows in all my days. 'Better luck to us, genelmen,' says I, filling my tot and taking a dram; but not a man on 'em answered. 'Pretty grave messmates I've got,' says I; 'but mayhap you don't hail as messmates, seeing as you arn't yet had a taste o' the stuff. Come, my hearties, I'll pipe to grog, and then I'll sarve it out all ship-shape to any on you as likes.' So I gives a chirp, and 'Grog ahoy!' sings I. Well, shipmates, I'm blessed if one on 'em didn't come down from the far eend o' the wault, and claps me alongside as I was sitting on the ground, and he takes hould o' the tot, knocks his head at me, as much as to say, 'All in good fellowship,' and down went the stuff through a pair o' leather lips in the twinkling of a hand-spik. 'All right, my hearty,' says I, filling the tot again: 'is there any more on you to chime in?'—'Sailor,' says he, in a voice that seemed to come from a fathom and a half down underneath him, for I'm blowed, messmates, if his lips ever moved;—'sailor, you must get out o' this,' says he.—'Lord love your heart,' says I, 'the thing's onpossible; you wouldn't have the conscience to make an honest tar cut and run in sich a rough night as this here.'—'We arn't never got no consciences,' says he; 'we're all dead.'—'Dead!' says I laughing, though, messmates, I own I was a bit flusticated; 'dead!' says I; 'that's gammon you're pitching, and I thinks it's hardly civil on you to try and bamboxter me arter that fashion. Why, didn't I see you myself just now when you spliced the main brace?—dead men don't drink brandy.'—'We're privileged,' sings out a little cock-eyed fellow up in one o' the niches; 'we're the ould ancient kings of Egypt, and I'm Fairer.'—'If there warn't many more fairer nor you,' says I, 'you'd be a cursed ugly set, saving your majesty's presence,' for I thought it best to be civil, Jack, seeing as I had got jammed in with such outlandish company, and not knowing what other privileges they might have had sarved out to 'em besides swallowing brandy. 'Will your majesty like just to take a lime-burner's twist, by way of warming your stumack a bit, and fumigating your hould?' says I, as I poured out the stuff.—'Give it to King Herod, as is moored alongside of you,' says he, 'and keep your thumb out of the measure;' for, shipmates, I'd shoved in my thumb pretty deep, by way of lengthening out the grog, and getting a better allowance of plush. How the ould chap came to obsarve it, I don't know, unless it was another of their privileges to be up to everything. 'Keep your thumb out!' says he.—'All right, your honour,' says I, handing the little ould fellow the tot; and he nipped it up, and knocked off the stuff in a moment. And 'Pray,' says I, 'may I make bould to ax your honour how long you've been dead?'—'About two thousand years,' says he: and, 'My eyes!' thinks I, 'but you're d—d small for your age.'—'But, sailor,' says he, 'what brought you here?'—'My legs, your honour,' says I, 'brought me as far as the hatchway; but I'm blowed if I didn't come down by the run into this here consarn.'—'You mustn't stop here, sailor,' says he,—'that's King Herod,—you can have no business with us, seeing as we're all mummies.'—'All what?' says I, 'all dummies?' for I didn't catch very clearly what he said; 'all dummies?' says I. 'Well, I'm bless'd if I didn't think so!'—'No, no! mummies,' says he again, rather cantankerously; 'not dummies, for we can all talk.'—'Mayhap so, your majesty,' says I, arter taking another bite of the cherry, and handing him a third full tot, taking precious good care to keep my thumb out this time: 'but what am I to rouse out for? It ud take more tackles than one to stir Joe Nighthead from this. I'm in the ground-tier,' says I, 'and amongst all your privileges, though you clap luff upon luff, one live British tar, at a purchase, is worth a thousand dead kings, any day.'—'Haugh!' says he, as he smacked his leather lips, and the noise was just like a breeze making a short board through a hole in a pair of bellows; 'Haugh!' says he, as soon as he'd bolted the licker, 'it doesn't rest with us, my man: as mummies, we're privileged against all kinds of spirits.'—'Except brandy,' says I.—'I means evil spirits,' says he: 'but if the devil should come his rounds, and find you here upon his own cruising-ground, he'd pick you up and make a prize of you to a sartinty.'—'D—the devil!' says I, as bould as a lion, for I warn't a-going to let the ould fellow think I was afeard of Davy Jones, though I was hard and fast ashore; and 'D—the devil,' says I, 'axing your majesty's pardon; the wagabone has got no call to me, seeing as I'm an honest man, and an honest man's son as defies him.' Well, shipmates, I had my head turned round a little, and something fetches me a crack in the ear, that made all sneer again, and 'Yo hoy! your majesty,' says I; 'just keep your fingers to yourself, if you pleases.'—'I never touched you,' says he; 'but there's one close to you as I can see, though you can't.'—'Gammon!' says I; 'as if your dead-eyes were better than my top-lights.'—But, shipmates, at that moment somut whispers to me,—for may I be rammed and jammed into a penny cannon if I seed anything; but somut whispers to me, Joe Nighthead, I'm here over your shoulder.'—'That's my name all reg'lar enough, whatever ship's books you got it from,' says I: 'But who the blazes are you that's not nothing more than a woice and no-body?'—'You knows well enough who I am,' says the whisper again; 'and I tell you what it is, Joe, I've got a job for you to do.'—'Show me your phisog first,' says I, 'or I'm blow'd if I've anything whatsomever to say to you. If you are the underground Davy Jones, it's all according to natur, mayhap; but I never signs articles unless I knows the owners.'—'But you do know me, Joe,' says the woice, that warn't more nor half a woice neither, in regard of its being more like the sigh of a periwinkle, or the groan of an oyster.—'Not a bit of it,' says I; for though I suckspected, shipmates, who the beggar was, yet I warn't going to let him log it down again me without having hoclar proof, so 'Not a bit of it,' says I; 'but if you wants me to do anything in all honour and wartue,'—you see, Jack, I didn't forget wartue, well knowing that when the devil baits his hook he claps a 'skylark' on to the eend of it; so, 'all in honour and wartue,' says I, 'and Joe's your man.'—'Do you know who's alongside of you?' says the woice.—'Why, not disactly,' says I: 'he calls himself King Herod; but it's as likely he may be Billy Pitt, for anything I knows to the contrary.'—'It is King Herod,' says the whisper again; 'the fellow who killed all the Innocents,'—'What innocents?' axes I, seeing as I didn't foregather upon his meaning.—'The innocent babbies,' says the woice; 'he killed them all, and now he's got a cruising commission to keep me out o' my just rights, and I daren't attack him down below here.'—'The ould cannibal!' says I: 'what! murder babbies?—then I'm blowed if he gets a drop more out of my canteen.'—'Who's that you're meaning on?' says King Herod; 'who isn't to get another taste?'—'Not nobody as consarns you, your honour,' answers I, for I didn't like to open my broadside upon him, in regard of not knowing but he might have a privilege to man-handle me again.—'I think you meant me,' says he; 'but if you didn't, prove the truth on it by handing me over a full gill.' Well, shipmates, that was bringing the thing to the pint, and it put me into a sort of quandary; but 'All in course, your honour,' says I; 'but I'm saying, your majesty, you arn't never got sich a thing as a bite o' pigtail about you—have you? seeing as I lost my chaw and my 'bacca-box in the gale—hove overboard to lighten ship.'—'Yes, I can, my man—some real Wirginny,' says the king."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the sergeant of marines; "go it, Joe;—you'll rival Tom Pepper presently. Why, Virginia is only a late discovery; such a place wasn't known in the days of Herod, nor tobacco either."
"To my thinking it's wery hodd, Muster Jolly, that you should shove your oar in where it arn't wanted," muttered Joe. "Why?—couldn't they have a Wirginny in Egypt? and as for the 'bacca, I'm blowed if I don't wouch for the truth on it, for out his majesty lugs a box as big round in dameter as the top of a scuttle-butt, and, knocking off the lid, 'There's some of the best as ever was many-facter'd,' says he. 'I loves a chaw myself, and there's nothing whatsomever as 'ull beat the best pound pig-tail.'—'Sartinly not, in course, your honour,' says I; 'but I'm blessed if it doesn't double upon my calculations o' things to think how your majesty, who ought to be in quod in t'other world, should take your quid in this.'—'We're privileged, my man,' says he; 'we're privileged and allowed to take anything, in reason,' and he fixed his glazed eyes with a 'ticing look at the canteen. 'You know,' says he, 'that it's an ould saying aboard, "the purser makes dead men chaw tobacco."' Well, shipmates, that was a clencher in the way of hargyfication that brought me up all standing; so I hands King Herod the tot again, and I rouses out a long scope of pig-tail out o' the box, and takes another nip at the brandy.—'You won't do it, then, Joe,' says the whisper t'other side of me.—'What is it?' axes I.—'The best pound pigtail,' says King Herod, as if he thought I was speaking to him.—'It's ounly to borrow one of these here mummies for me for about half an hour,' says the woice.—'Which on 'em?' says I.—'This here in the box,' says King Herod. 'Why, I'm thinking your brains are getting all becalmed.' And so they was, shipmates; for, what with the woice at one ear that I couldn't see, and his majesty at the other, who often doubled himself into two or three, I'm blowed if I warn't reg'larly bamboozled in my upper works."
"You was drunk, Joe," said the sergeant of marines; "it's very evident you was non compos mentis."
"And, what if I hadn't a nun compass to steer by?" replied Joe angrily, "is that any reason I should be tosticated? I tell you I warn't drunk, in regard o' the full allowance o' brandy I stowed in my hould to keep me steady and sober. Ax Jack there if it's any way likely I should be drunk."
"It stands to reason, not," argued Jack Sheavehole, "or, what's the use of a fellow having the stuff sarved out at all? Short allowance only brings a mist afore the eyes and circumpollygates the head till everything looms, like Beachy in a fog. But when you've your full whack, it clears the daylights, cherishes the cockles o' your heart, and makes you more handy, 'cause you often sees two first leftenants where there's ounly one."
"Dat berry true, massa Jack," said Mungo Pearl; "me al'ays sweep de deck more clean when me tink me hab two broom in me hand."
"In course," continued Joe, more soothed; "none but a Jolly would go to say anything again it, or doubt the woracity o' the thing. Well, shipmates, to heave ahead, I'm saying I was reg'larly bamblustercated when one of the genelmen up in the niches squeaks out, 'King Herod, I'll just thank you for a thimble-full of the stuff.'"
"Did he say 'a thimble-full?'" inquired Sam Slick, the tailor. "It couldn't be a professional thimble, then, for they never has no tops to 'em. It shows, however, the antickity of thimbles; though I thought they never had any use for them in those days."