The crews were fine hardy fellows, known as kreelmen. I was astonished to hear them call each other bullies, till I found that the term signified “brothers.” So bully Saunders meant brother Saunders.
Jim and I had had the sense to put on our working clothes, which was fortunate, as before long, with the coal-dust flying about, we were as black as negroes, but as everything and all on board were coloured with the same brush, we did not mind that.
With the help of the kreelmen the Nancy was soon loaded, and we again sailed for the southward. Matters did not improve. The captain, having abstained from liquor while on shore, recompensed himself by taking a double allowance, and became proportionably morose and ill-tempered, never speaking civilly to me, and often passing a whole day without exchanging a word with his poor mate; and when he did open his mouth it was to abuse. The brig, though tolerably tight when light, now that she had a full cargo, as soon as a sea got up began to leak considerably, so that each watch had to pump for an hour to keep the water under. Jim and I took our turns without being ordered, but though accustomed to the exercise, it was hard work. When we cried “Spell ho!” for others to take our places, the captain shouted, “You began to pump for your own pleasure, now you shall go on for mine, you young rascals!” The men, however, though they at first laughed, having more humanity than the skipper, soon relieved us.
This was the third day after we sailed, when the wind shifting to the south-west, and then to the south, we stood away to the eastward in order to double the North Foreland. After some time it came on to blow harder than ever, but the brig was made snug in time, though the leaks increased, and all hands in a watch were kept, spell and spell, at the pumps. The captain behaved just as before, drinking all day long, though he did not appear to lose his senses altogether. The mate, however, looked very anxious as the vessel pitched into the seas each time more violently than before. I asked him if he thought she would keep afloat.
“That’s more than I can promise you, my boy,” he answered. “If the wind falls, and the sea goes down, we may perhaps manage to keep the leaks under; but if I were the captain I would run for Harwich or the Thames sooner than attempt to thrash the vessel round the Foreland.”
“Why don’t you propose that to him, and if he does not agree, just steer as you think best?” I said. “I suspect that he would not find out in what direction we were standing.”
“Wouldn’t he, though! Why, Peter, I tell you he would swear there was a mutiny, and knock me overboard,” answered the poor mate in a tone of alarm.
He was evidently completely cowed by the captain, and dared not oppose him. The night was just coming on; the seas kept breaking over the bows, washing the deck fore and aft, and the clank of the pumps was heard without cessation. The captain sat in his cabin, either drinking or sleeping, except when occasionally he clambered on deck, took a look around while holding on to the companion-hatch, and then, apparently thinking that all was going on well, went below again. When I could pump no longer I turned in, thinking it very probable that I should never see another sunrise. By continually pumping, the brig was kept afloat during the night; but when I came on deck in the morning, the mate, who looked as if he would drop from fatigue, told me that the leaks were gaining on us. We were now far out, I knew, in the German Ocean, and if the brig should go down, there was too much sea running to give us a chance of saving ourselves.
Some time after daylight the captain came on deck, and he had not been there long when there was a lull. “Hands about ship!” he shouted.
The watch below tumbled up, and the brig was got round.