“Will you take charge, sir?” humbly asked the mate. “I have been on deck all night, and can scarcely stand.”
The captain raved at him for a lazy hound. “I haven’t turned in, either,” he said, though he had been asleep in his chair for several hours. “I want my breakfast; when I’ve had that I’ll relieve you.”
The mate made no reply, and as soon as the captain went below he hurried forward to bid the cook make haste with the cabin breakfast. It was a difficult matter, however, to keep the galley fire alight, or the pots on it in their places. The weather seemed to be improving, but the men were well-nigh worn out with pumping. When the captain at last came on deck, in spite of their grumbling, he kept them labouring away as hard as ever, and ordered Jim and me to take our turn with the rest. This we did willingly, as we knew that unless all exerted themselves the brig must founder.
As noon approached, the captain brought up his quadrant, and sent below to summon the mate to take observations though the clouds hung so densely over the sky that there was but little chance of doing this.
“Might as well try to shoot the sun at midnight as now, with the clouds as dark as pitch,” growled the mate. “What was the use of calling me up for such fool’s work?”
“What’s that you say?” shouted the captain. “Do you call me a fool?”
“Yes, I do, if you expect to take an observation with such a sky as we have got overhead,” answered the mate.
“Then take that!” screamed the captain, throwing the quadrant he held in his hand at the mate’s head, not, for the moment, probably, recollecting what it was.
It struck the mate on the temple, who, falling, let his own quadrant go, and both were broken to pieces.
“Here’s a pretty business,” cried one of the men, “I wonder now what will become of us!”