“It is well for him,” said I, “that he should have made up his mind at once that I am the better man. I felt a sort of pity for the shapeless bulk when I saw it rushing upon me, with its arms whirring like the flails of a thresher upon a whale. A fellow apprentice of mine, in the third voyage I made, was the son of a prize-fighter. He had learnt the art from his father, and claimed to have his science. Many a stand-up affair happened between this youth and me, during our watches below. He showed me every trick at last, though the education cost my face some new skins.”
“If Van Laar shows himself on deck, or indeed, if he leaves his berth, I’ll clap him in irons,” said Greaves. “Meanwhile, Fielding, you will enter upon your duties at once, providing you feel strong enough.”
“Perfectly strong enough,” said I.
“Very well,” said he, “you will relieve Yan Bol at four bells, and I will call the crew aft and tell them that you are mate of the Black Watch.”
So here now was I chief mate of a smart brig, with ten pounds a month for wages, not to mention the six thousand pounds I was to take up if we brought our cargo of dollars home in safety. Truthfully had I told Greaves that my adventures at sea had been few, but surely now life was making atonement for her past beggarly provision of strange, surprising experiences, by the creation of incidents incomparably romantic and memorable, as I will maintain before the whole world, was that incident of the gibbet, on the sand hills near Deal.
When I reached the deck I found a noble, flying, inspiriting scene of swelling and cleaving and foaming brig and ocean curling southward. Through the luster of an angry, glorious sunset, the froth flew in flakes of blood, and every burst of white water from the courtesying bows was crimson with sparkles as of rubies. I wondered, when I looked at the see-saw sloping of the deck, how on earth the Dutchman and I had managed to keep our pins while we fought. Yet, why did I wonder? I found myself standing beside the captain, no more sensible than he of a swing and sway that when it came to a roll was roof-steep often, gazing forward with him at the crew, who were assembling in response to the boatswain’s summons, preparatory to laying aft.
This was a small business and promptly dispatched. Two men were at the wheel, and eight men, leaving Jim Vinten out, came to the mainmast to hear what the captain had to say. He said no more than this: “Yan Bol, and you men: Mr. Van Laar is under arrest in his cabin, and Mr. William Fielding here is and will be the mate of the Black Watch. He is a much better man than Van Laar. You would split your throats with huzzas did you know how very much smarter Mr. Fielding is than Van Laar. We want nothing but sharp and able men aboard the Black Watch. You’ll know why anon—you’ll know why anon. I have my eye upon ye, lads, and so far, I’m very well satisfied. You seem a willing crew; keep so. A man, after he has heard our errand, would sooner have cut his throat than fail me. Heed me well, hearts, for this is to be a big cruise. Here’s your mate, Mr. William Fielding,” and he put his hand upon my shoulder.
The fellows stared very hard. They were strangers to me as yet, and I knew not which were Dutch and which were English; but some exchanged looks with a half-suppressed grin, and those I guessed were English. Yan Bol stood forward—Yan we called him, though he spelt his name with a J. He was, as you have heard, boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker, a stern, bearded, beetle-browed man, heavily clothed with hair—leonine—indeed, in the matter of hair.
“I beg pardon, captain,” said he, “does Herr Van Laar goom forward?”
“No,” answered the captain, “he goes over the side presently, when there’s a ship to pick him up.”