She took the clumsy weapon in her small delicate white hand and toyed with it, levelling and examining it, and so forth. I bade her mind, as it was loaded. She smiled, and going to her bunk, hid the pistol between the mattress and the bulkhead.
‘I shall certainly feel easier for having it,’ said she. ‘You will not always now be next door, Mr. Dugdale. You will be for four hours at a time on deck, when you keep your watch.’
‘Ay,’ said I; ‘but there is a skylight; and I’ll take care that the cabin lamp be kept burning; and I have a keen ear, too, that when I am away from you will not be blunted by my thoughts always being here.’
My own cabin I found comfortable enough. I was not so choice as to be above using what I found in it. The unhappy captain had left behind him sufficient clothes to provide me with several changes; and a couple of his coats fitted me very well—being made, I suppose, to allow for a sailor’s underclothing in cold weather—though I was much broader in the shoulders than he had been. I overhauled his papers, but found nothing of interest. What I met with I carefully put away in a drawer along with some money, and one or two objects of some small value, for I remembered that the unfortunate creature had left a widow behind him, who might be thankful for his poor effects, should the little ship ever live to carry his goods and his tragic story to a civilised place.
Wilkins waited upon us with punctuality and civility. He would ask me what I wished for breakfast and dinner and supper, bringing little suggestions from the cook as to sea-pies and ship-board hashes and currant dumplings and other heavy dishes, for the due digestion of which a man needs to have bowels of brass and the triple rows of the shark’s fangs. Indeed, the Lady Blanche’s larder was a poor one, and the genius of the first cook in the world must have come to a halt in the face of such a Mother Hubbard of a cupboard. Aft, there was little more to eat than the forecastle stores: salt beef and salt pork, peas, currants for duff days, biscuit, coffee and tea, and a few other items. However, the dead captain had laid in a good stock of bottled beer. There were also a few gallons of brandy and gin, both of them a very good spirit; and the forecastle stores, supplemented by cheese and hams and some tins of preserved stuff bearing the name of soup and bouilli—pronounced by sailors soup and bully, or soap and bullion—supplied us with dishes enough to enable us to support life and even health, helped out as they were by occasional little relishes from the cook, feeble attempts indeed, and briny to a degree, yet in their way welcome to people who were as good as beggars in food, and without choice.
Lush faithfully kept to his end of the ship. He never offered to enter the cabin except to my invitation, when perhaps I would have something in navigation to tell him about. He seemed anxious to keep us at a distance, and picked up the ship’s routine, when his watch came round, as I let it fall, with an air of morose reserve. I made several efforts with an assumption of cheerfulness and heartiness of manner to break through his sullenness, with the dream of finding something like a human being of sensibilities behind it, whom I should be able to influence into getting the crew to consent to speak a passing ship, that Miss Temple might be transferred to her; but he was like a hedgehog; his quills regularly rose to my least approach. He would watch me with a sulky, cursing expression in his eye, or view me with a sour, askant regard, and to my civillest speech respond in some ragged, scurvy sentence.
But I did not play an obliging part with him very long. Having come to the conclusion that he was a ruffian of immovable qualities, I recurred to my earlier behaviour, addressed him only to give him instructions in a peremptory manner, or to point out the ship’s place on the chart; so, as you will suppose, very little passed between us; yet my putting on the airs of a captain and treating him as the mere forecastle hand which he claimed to be, influenced his bearing, and rendered him even respectful.
Nevertheless, I knew that he and his mates never had their eyes off me, so to speak; that, having learnt the course to Cape Horn was so-and-so, the compass was watched with restless assiduity, every man as he was relieved at the wheel reporting the direction of the ship’s head to his companions forward, and how she had been steering during his trick; that my behaviour on deck was critically followed by eyes in the fore-part of the ship; that I could never give an order to trim sail during my watch but that it was duly reported to Lush, and weighed and considered by the crew in the frequent councils they held in the caboose. All this I was secretly informed of by Wetherly.
Yet I had nothing to complain of in the behaviour of the men. They sprang to my bidding, and their ‘Ay, ay, sirs,’ and responses to my orders had as lively and hearty a ring as anyone could hope to hear in the mouth of a crew. They sang out briskly when they pulled and hauled, with enjoyment of the sound of their own voices, and a marked willingness in their demeanour to contribute their utmost to the navigation of the vessel. This, indeed, was to be expected. It was rather a Jack’s jaunt now with them, than a voyage; they were sailing, as they believed, to an island full of gold; their fortunes were assured; they gazed into a future radiant with visions of dancing, drinking, marine jinks of all sorts; they knew that the fulfilment of their fine lookout must depend upon their willingness to work the ship now, so that everything they did they did without a growl; without the least hint of the mutinous disposition that would have shown strong and deadly in them, had their wishes been delayed or obstructed.
But outside the actual, essential routine of the ship, nothing was done. The decks were washed down at very long intervals only; there was no sail-making or repairing; the spunyarn winch was mute; the chafing gear was left to rot off as it would; the carpenter indeed saw to the rigging, took care that everything should be sound, for neither he nor his mates had a mind to lose a mast. But there was very little of sweeping or polishing, of swabbing or cleaning.