"IF YOU ARE AS GOOD A SAILOR AS YOU ARE A SWORDSMAN, YOU WILL END THIS CRUISE AN OFFICER."
"Debrin," he said, "you have done well. If you are as good a sailor as you are a swordsman, you will end this cruise an officer. This is more than I have ever said in the way of praise or promise to any living man. Forget it, and do your duty."
I could not have replied at this moment, for my wits left me; so I merely touched my forehead in salute, and went forward again. I could see that the men were whispering, and it was all I could do to hide my embarrassment. I believe that I was blushing like a schoolgirl.
The next day was a repetition of this one, albeit the work was quite easy for me, and I grew keen with the interest of it. The Fourth Lieutenant, a Mr. Spencer, arrived in the afternoon; and a sergeant, who had served in the army, was enlisted as a Lieutenant of marines. Apparently he found no fault with whatever they had been taught under my instruction, and Sutton, the man with whom I had had the passage of arms, came to me to learn the disarming stroke. As I met him more than half-way in this overture, we became friendly. In the afternoon I endeavored to get ashore (oh, how I wished to talk to Mary!), and I was delighted at being one of the crew that pulled Captain Temple to the wharf at six o'clock.
Captain Temple's stay on shore, however, had been short, consisting merely of a visit to Mr. McCulough's office (the latter was part owner of the Young Eagle), and I got no chance to run up into the town, as I had intended. My wish, if it were possible, to get another glimpse of Mary Tanner, was frustrated. This fortune was not to be mine. Oh, one thing that I almost came to forgetting: On the pier, standing in the crowd, was Gaston, his outrageous black hat tied about with a streamer and his long cloak flapping about his shanks. I doubt not the people were making fun of him. But he did not recognize me, and I breathed more freely.
As we rowed back to the ship, I heard the Captain say to a caderverous-looking man who had joined him at the dock with a big bundle and an oak chest,
"Well, Mr. Flemming, we sail on the early tide to-morrow."
The new-comer was the ship's surgeon, and one of the bowmen observed to me, as we got the gig up at the davits,
"Well, messmate, how would you like old sawbones there to take a hack at you—eh, Johnny?"
I might state, if I have not done too much bragging in this chapter already, that I had already received a nickname in the forecastle, and was known as "Johnny Cutlass," which, instead of resenting, I felt quite proud of.