After some time, Gordon and the other arrived with their arms full of bottles of beer and preserved meats, and delicate cabin eatables out of the pantry. It was broiling hot. Mike Scott at the helm bawled to them to bring him a bottle. He swilled the foaming draught down out of a pannikin in a sort of dance of ecstasy.
'What's the young woman a-doing of?' asked the boatswain, following Gordon into the deck-house.
'She was sitting by her father's body when we entered. She jumps up as if she'd been stabbed, and says in a little shriek: "What do you men want?" I answered in the kindest voice I've got: "We're not here to hurt you, miss. The men are hungry, and want food, and I've come to fetch 'em some—food and a little beer. What can I get for you, miss?" says I. "This is the luncheon-hour. Let me spread the table for you." She shook, and held out her hands as though shoving me away. How could she sit down and eat with him lying there? Indeed, it went against me to name it, Jim. It was flung cruelly hard. I never see such a forehead as the poor old bloke's got.'
'By the vart of me oath, then,' exclaimed Toole—for now all hands had swarmed into the deck-house—'Maul took aim at the pistol, and never meant to kill him!'
They were hungry and thirsty, a rough, red-handed mob of seamen. They sat down upon their chests, and ate and drank, one taking a plateful of food to the helmsman, and whilst they dined they discoursed upon what was to be done.
Occasionally the boatswain would step out and look around. The wind was slack, the fiery eye of heaven was eating it up, and the sea waved in dull shades of satin and silver in winding dyes of faint violet and glassy brightness, as though a current ran; it sheeted with colours faint with tropic heat into the now visionary distance where sea and sky were blent.
'What are we to do with this vessel, and how are we to manage for ourselves?' said the boatswain, who sat on a chest with a tin of preserved meat between his knees. 'That's the question.'
'Ain't this moist stuff veal and 'am?' Whatever it is, it's blooming nice,' said a sailor.
'Joe, knock the 'ead off this 'ere bottle for me; you've got the knack.'