Good reason we had to wonder. The mate, picking himself up, flew at the captain, and a fearful struggle ensued. Both were too excited to know what they were about, and the captain, who was the stronger of the two, would have hove the mate overboard had not the crew rushed aft and separated them.
The mate then went below, and the captain rolled about the deck, stamping and shouting that he would be revenged on him. At last he also went down into the cabin.
Fearing that he would at once put his fearful threats into execution and attack the mate, I followed, intending to call the crew to my assistance should it be necessary. I saw him, however, take another pull at the rum bottle, and then, growling and muttering, turn into his bed. I waited till I supposed that he was asleep, and then I went to the mate’s berth.
“There is no one in charge of the deck, sir,” I said. “And if it was to blow harder, as it seems likely to do, I don’t know what will happen.”
“Nor do I either, Peter, with such a drunken skipper as ours,” he answered. “What are the men about?”
“They have knocked off from the pumps, and if you don’t come on deck and order them to turn to again they’ll let the brig go down without making any further effort to save her,” I answered.
My remarks had some effect, for though the mate had himself been drinking, or he would not have spoken as he did to the captain, he yet had some sense left in his head. He at last got up and came on deck. All the hands, except the man at the helm, were crouching down under the weather-bulwarks to avoid the showers of spray flying in dense masses over us. The sea had increased, and though we had not much sail set, the brig was heeling over to the furious blasts which every now and then struck her; if she righted it was only to bend lower still before the next.
“Do you want to lose your lives or keep them, lads?” shouted the mate, after sounding the well. “Well then, I can tell you that if you don’t turn to at once and work hard, and very hard, too, the brig will be at the bottom before the morning.”
Still the men did not move. Jim was holding on near me.
“Come, let you and me try what we can do,” I said; “we have pumped to good purpose before now.”