The seamen at length made signs to old Grim, and Jack, and the boys, that they might go down below. Some seamen then spread out four hammocks in the fore part of the ship, and signed to them that they had better lie down and rest themselves—a proposal which they willingly accepted.
“I suppose they will give us some food,” said Jack.
“They cannot fancy we can live upon water and air,” observed Bill; “so I dare say, by-and-by, they will.”
“They seem to carry on things in a rum man-of-war fashion,” observed Grimshaw, pointing along the deck.
The larger portion of the crew appeared to be below, and they were all seated about the decks, some with cards, others with dice, so absorbed in their games that they took no notice of the newcomers. Some few were mending their clothes, or manufacturing various articles; but the greater number of those who were not gambling were talking vehemently, “making all sorts of grimaces,” as Grim observed; now and then touching the hilts of the long knives they wore in their belts, as if they were about to start up and stick them into each other. Some were laughing, others uttering strange cries; the losers were swearing, and the gainers shouting with glee. On one side, although there was scarcely room for a tall man to stand upright, a fiddler was playing, with several men dancing round him; while another party were collected round a man who was singing, at the top of his voice, a song which seemed to afford his auditors infinite amusement. In spite of the strange Babel of sounds, however, the weary seamen and two boys at length fell back and dropped off asleep.
Chapter Sixteen.
The ship by which Mr Collinson and his companions had been rescued was the Poisson Volant, a privateer fitted out at Port a Petre, in Dominique. She had had a long run of ill-luck, so the surgeon told him, and this had put her officers in very bad humour. The dark, stout man was her captain, of whom the surgeon seemed to stand greatly in awe.
“He would make no scruple of shooting any one through the head who offends him, and as I have no fancy to be treated in that way, I purpose, if I can once get on shore, to leave the ship.”