[Captain Jones of the "Rose."]
By W. Clark Russell.
Seven men sat in a gloomy wooden cave. Under a massive beam that ran athwart the ceiling swung a sort of coffee-pot, from the spout of which sputtered a smoking and stinking flame, whose disgusting fumes were to be everywhere tasted in the atmosphere of the darksome wooden cave. The seven men were seated, not on morocco chairs or velvet sofas, but on rude boxes, whose lids were scored by the cutting up of cake tobacco. There were one or two pillars or stanchions in this gloomy wooden cave, from which dangled several oilskin coats and oilskin leggings, and under the ceiling hung a number of bags called hammocks, with here and there a ragged blanket peeping over the edge, or an old shoe showing through the nettles. In the midst of the ceiling was a square hole called a hatch, down which this day there floated very little daylight, owing partly to the hatch being small and partly to the sky being overcast with clouds.
"SEVEN MEN SAT IN A GLOOMY WOODEN CAVE."
Had those seven men seated in this interior been cleanly shaved, and had they been apparelled in well-washed coloured shirts, sleeved waistcoats, comfortable trousers, and caps with naval peaks, they would have passed as a harmless, respectable body of seafaring men—persons who would say "mum" to a lady when addressed by her, and answer intelligently and respectfully when asked about the weather. But as they now sat they looked as sulky and wild a set of fellows as one could imagine, strangely and fearfully attired, grimy of face and hairy, booted with half-Wellingtons and belted in Wapping fashion, and timid people would have thought that they carried a murderous air because each man wore a sheath upon his hip, in which lay a very sharp blade.
The wooden cave in which these men sat, rose and fell as though it were the extreme end of a long board violently see-saw'd; and this motion, combined with the smell of the fumes of the slush-fed lamp and a vapour rising out of a small tub of boiled pork, not to mention other odours such as might be produced by well-worn, newly-greased sea-boots, bedding which had made several voyages round the world, sooty clay pipes, old ropes, stale salt water, and many mysteries of malodorous commodities stowed below in the hold and forepeak, must instantly have upset the stomach of any landsman who out of curiosity should have put his head into the little hatch to see what was inside of it.
This cave was indeed a ship's forecastle, but the seven men who sat in it were mariners who had for many years been tossed by the various oceans of the world, and could not possibly have been sea-sick, even though they should have been offered a handsome reward to try.