Before the mate could speak, Mrs Podgers waddled up to him. “Well, Mr Falconer, you’ve found your way out of your cabin at last,” she said, in her nasty wheezy tone. “I should have thought that when an officer was only slightly hurt, as you were, he might have managed to return to his duty before this.”
The mate said nothing, but the remark made Miss Kitty very angry. I should have said, that as Mrs Podgers would not allow me on the quarterdeck, the appearance of the bows in her bonnet above the companion-hatch was the signal for me to escape among my friends forward; and that it was from Dick, who was at the helm, I afterwards heard of the unpleasant remarks made by that most unattractive of females.
Chapter Ten.
Whaling and Fighting.
The Dolphin, after her first ill-success at privateering, stood away from the coast towards a part of the ocean where it was expected that whales would be found. Look-outs were at the mast-head.
I was sitting with Dick forward, for as Mrs Podgers was sunning herself on deck, I was keeping out of her way. Miss Kitty was reading, and Mr Falconer was pacing up and down, as officer of the watch, taking care not to approach her till Mrs Podgers should dive below. Most of the crew were knitting and splicing, spinning yarns, or performing other work, of which there is always plenty to be done on board ship, while some few of them were lying lazily about, doing nothing.
I have not before mentioned a personage who was dubbed the officer of marines, Lieutenant Pyke. His figure was tall and thin, as the captain’s was short and broad, and though their noses were much of the same colour, being as red as strong potations and hot suns could possibly make them, Lieutenant Pyke’s was enormously long. He was now engaged in drilling twelve of the most ruffianly and ill-conditioned of the crew, whom he called his jollies. They were of various heights and dimensions, and though they wore red coats and belts, knee-breeches and gaiters, and carried muskets, they were, as Dick, who held them in supreme contempt, declared, “as unlike sodgers as they could well be.” Lieutenant Pyke, however, was proud of them, and boasted that they would follow him to the cannon’s mouth, whenever he led the way.