A boat dropped awkwardly from the vessel's tall side, and in a minute or two the gold of brandished oars sparkled upon the delicate feathering of the water. The men were washing down aboard the York. In those days they carried a head pump which they rigged, and the bright water was passed in buckets and sluiced over the planks, the boatswain standing by and giving the scrubbers heart by his inspiriting cries, roars, and oaths. It was a common scene of shipboard life, full of colour, movement, and business.
Hardy looked along the decks for the French mate, but did not see him.
The captain exclaimed, "We'll send the fellow aboard in his boat. A good riddance. How some faces damn the souls which animate them! You seldom err in judging of a man by his looks. The expression is formed by the character. But affliction may deceive you, I allow; a harelip, for example, or a cock-eye."
"Shall I pass the word for the Frenchman, sir?" said Hardy.
"Oh, yes! oh, yes, rout him out of it!" answered the captain, smiling with that air of superiority which would have convicted him in the eyes of a keeper.
The word was passed, and the Frenchman, with the aspect of a pirate in a boy's book, rose through the scuttle as the boat came alongside. The man who had steered her scrambled into the mizzen-chains and sprang on to the quarter-deck with a salute of French courtesy. He was close-shaven and dark, habited in loose blue breeches and a jumper, and looked a good sailor spite his nationality, that was as marked in gesture and bearing as though branded on his brow.
"Can I speak to the captain?" said he, looking from Hardy to the skipper. His broken English was good.
"Glad you speak my tongue," said the captain. "What do you want?"
"I have served in American ships and can speak English," answered the man. "I am brother of the captain of that barque. He was stabbed last night and is dead. Our second mate, too, is dead. The first mate is missing. I'll swear he killed my poor brother, and then drowned himself. We are without a navigator. What are we to do?"