The men replied, that I had only just been found and brought on deck, and that they thought I was dying.
“It would have saved trouble to have hove him overboard before he came to himself,” said the mate, with a careless laugh. “The captain doesn’t allow of stowaways, and we don’t want any aboard here.”
He said this, I suppose, to frighten me, indifferent to the consequences.
“He’s very bad, sir,” said my friend, touching his hat, “and, maybe, it won’t much matter what is done with him; but if you’ll give me leave, I’ll take him below to my berth, after we’ve washed off the dirt that sticks to him. He wants food more than anything else to bring him round, and when he’s himself we can make some use of him at all events. We want a boy forward very badly, and he’ll be worth his salt, I’ve a notion.”
“You may do what you like with him, Tom Trivett,” answered the officer, “only don’t let us be bothered with him. We’ve trouble enough with young Riddle, the mutinous young rascal. He’ll have to look out for himself, if he don’t mind.”
The officer was the third mate of the ship, who happened just then to have charge of the deck. He made further inquiries about how I had been found, and asked the men whether they had before known of my being on board?
Trivett replied that they were entirely ignorant as to how I had come into the ship, but that hearing peculiar noises, they lifted the hatch, and that he had gone down and discovered me.
“We shall hear by-and-by what he has to say for himself. In the meantime, Trivett, take care of him, and I’ll let the captain know he’s been found. He’s the ghost you fellows have been frightened about,” said the mate.
“We were no more frightened than he was,” I heard some of the men utter, “but who could tell where all those strange noises we heard came from when any of us went down into the hold. He’s precious ready to call us cowards, but he was more frightened than we were. Why, he would never go down unless he had a couple of hands with him.” While this was going on, Tom Trivett continued swabbing my head and neck. When the mate walked aft he called to the cook to bring him a bucket of warm water from the caboose, as well as a lump of soap, a scrubbing-brush, and a piece of canvas.
The sun was shining brightly, and the air was warm, so that I did not feel the exposure so much as it might have been felt. Tom forthwith set about to scrape me clean, taking his own pocket-comb to disentangle my matted hair after he had washed it. The operation, though somewhat hazardous, greatly refreshed me. Before it was concluded, Julius Caesar, the black cook, who had some tender spot in his heart, brought out a basin of soup, from which Trivett fed me as tenderly as a nurse would a young child. This still further revived me.