"Ay, ay; agreeable enough," was the general answer.
"Well, then, Butler, you're displaced, d'ye see? No call for you to relieve me any longer."
"And a good job too," said the man, a heavy, sturdy, powerfully built fellow with small, honest, glittering blue eyes, and immense bushy whiskers; "there was nothin' said about my taking charge of the deck in the agreement."
"Well, you're out of it," exclaimed Captain Dopping, "and the ship's company's stronger by a hand, which is as it should be. D'ye hear me, cook?"
"Yash, yash, I hear all right, capitan," answered the swarthy creature from the door of his galley, contorting his countenance into the aspect of a horrid face beheld by one in a high fever, in his struggle to articulate in English.
"That'll do, my lads," said the captain.
The men leisurely rounded and went forward again. There was nothing unusual in this proceeding. It was customary, it may still be customary at sea, to invite the decision of the crew before electing a man to fill a vacant post as first or second mate. All that I found singular lay in the behavior of the men. There was something in their bearing I find it impossible to convey—a suggestion of resolution struggling with reluctance, or it might be that they gave me the impression of fellows who had entered upon an undertaking without wholly understanding its nature or without fully believing in the sincerity of its promoters. But be their manner what it might, its effect upon me was to greatly sharpen my curiosity as to the object of this schooner's voyage from Cadiz to the north as she was now heading.
I said to Captain Dopping, "I will take charge at once if you wish to go below."
"Very well," said he, "I will relieve you at four bells, and that will give you the first watch to stand," by which he meant the watch from eight o'clock till midnight.
"But I do not know your destination," said I. "How is the schooner to be steered?"