While we were talking, the captain, whom we had not yet seen, came on deck. He was a fine, tall, sailor-like looking man, with a handsome countenance and large eyes, which seemed to take in everything at a glance—a person of whom the roughest crew would stand in awe.
His bright eyes fell on Jim and me; he beckoned us to come up, and, looking at me, bade me give him the particulars of the loss of the brig, about which Mr Griffiths and the doctor had told him.
I gave him the account as he desired, and then thought that I might venture to ask him to put Jim and me on shore, for that, as may be supposed, was the thing uppermost in my mind.
“We will see about that, my lads,” he answered. “If the wind holds as it now does it won’t cause us any delay, but I can make no promises. Boys at your age ought to wish to see the world, and we can find employment for you on board. You are sharp fellows, I can see, or you would not have saved your lives. One of the apprentices isn’t worth his salt, and the other will slip his cable before long, I suspect. His friends insisted on my taking him, fancying that the voyage would restore him to health.”
The captain spoke in so free-and-easy a way that the awe with which I was at first inclined to regard him vanished.
The wind, I should have said, had shifted to the westward of south. We were standing about north-west, a course which would carry us over to the English coast before long. We were obliged to be content with the sort of promise that the captain had made, and I hoped that when the doctor and Mr Griffiths spoke to him, that he would not refuse to put us on shore.
Though Jim and I were well enough to walk about the deck, we were too weak to venture aloft, or we should have been at the masthead looking out for land. We went forward, however, keeping our eyes over the starboard bow, where we expected every instant to see it.
Several of the men spoke to us good-naturedly, and were as eager as the officers had been to hear what had happened to us. While we were standing there looking out, a lad came up and said, “So I hear you fellows are to be our messmates. What are your names?”
I told him.
“Mine’s Ned Horner,” he said, “and I hope we shall be friends, for I can’t make anything of the fellow who messes with me, George Esdale. There’s no fun in him, and he won’t talk or do anything when it’s his watch below but read and sing psalms.”