Who hung like a ’ero ad dever would flitch!
On finishing this song, the prize-fighter bellowed in a loud voice of thunder: ‘Chorus, pals all! Chorus, pals all!’ And the drunken mob, in every variety of note, till the chorus was no more than an ear-splitting, discordant howling, repeated
Then follow the practice of clever Tom Pinch,
Who hung like a hero and never would flinch!
The convicts vastly enjoyed their own singing. They shrieked, cheered, whistled, hammered and roared, and roared again with laughter and applause. Whilst I looked I saw a man fall dead-drunk from his chair right under the skylight and lie like a log on the deck. (This was the lean, grey man who had talked of the devils that swam in a rum-cask.) I thought of that day when Mr. Barney Abram sat with other prisoners under the skylight and lifted up his voice in a song of devotion, and the doctor’s stern face of approval came before me.
Some men on the main-deck laughed loudly and talked uproariously. They were convicts going to the galley for hot water to mix fresh pails of rum with. The moonshine lay white on the planks, and you could see the buckets swaying in the fellows’ hands as they lurched, laughing and talking, toward the galley, about whose open door hovered the sheen of a lamp burning within.
‘I hope they’ll not end at this,’ said Tom, standing at my side and speaking to Mr. Bates. ‘If they don’t get more drunk, they’ll fall to fighting, and bethink them of the soldiers’ weapons under the poop, and turn the cabin into a shambles.’
‘The drink takes effect quickly,’ said Mr. Bates.
‘Many of them haven’t tasted a drop for years!’ exclaimed Tom.
The people below fell silent again; a loud, clear voice, that did not seem in liquor, began to sing. I guessed from the direction in which the convicts’ heads were turned that the singer was the hare-lipped man. We came away from the skylight and stood near the wheel, which Will held.