‘There is no wind,’ said I; ‘and without wind, Johnson, ships cannot sail.’
‘Then why the confounded dickens don’t he lower all the boats,’ he cried, ‘and fill them with sailors, and tug the ship out of sight of that beast there?’
I laughed outright.
‘Well, I’m not in the habit of using strong language,’ said Mr. Emmett, scowling at the brig; ‘but curse me if I’m going to fight. My simple contention is, I’ve paid my money to be transported peacefully to India; and,’ added he, with a glance aft at old Keeling, who was staring up at the sky, as though to observe if there were any drift in the vapour up there, ‘if he don’t fulfil his undertaking, I’ll sue him or his owners for breach of contract.’
‘I’m no sailor,’ exclaimed Mr. Johnson, ‘but I may claim to have some intelligence as a landsman, and my argument is,’ he cried, talking in a loud voice, ‘that it is quite in Captain Keeling’s power to launch the boats and drag the ship away from this spot. In an hour the brig would be out of sight.’
At that instant there was a flash of lightning that made a crimson dazzle of the dark heavens beyond the brig, where the sky sloped in a horrible yellowish slate colour into the sooty thickness which circled the horizon.
‘Ha!’ cried Mr. Emmett, ‘I don’t like lightning;’ and he abruptly trundled down the poop ladder to the quarter-deck and disappeared.
‘Here’s a mess to be in!’ grumbled Johnson. ‘It’s all very well to shoot or be shot at if you make butchery a profession. But to be maimed or killed in some cheap affray—having to fight for people you don’t care a hang about—obliged, for instance, to jeopardise your eyes, your limbs, perhaps your very existence, for an old woman like Mrs. Bannister, when the business is not in one’s line at all—’ He clenched his fist, and fetching his thigh a whack with it, exclaimed: ‘Let little hectoring Colonel Cock-a-doodle-doo cut as many throats as he can come at—I am a man of peace. I have parted with a large sum to get to India in comfort; and to expect me to help the sailors to fight is as monstrous as to look to me to assist them in furling the sails and scrubbing the decks.’
Thus speaking, he followed Mr. Emmett down on to the quarter-deck.