“Very well, you will have the chance with us, and I’ll enter you as one of the ship’s boys,” said the captain. “Below there!” he shouted, and the steward, a black man, appeared. “Give this lad some food, and find him a berth, Emery,” said the captain, in a good-natured tone. Turning aft he said to himself, “There is stuff in that lad, though he has evidently been brought up among the Methodists.”
The black steward took Peter into his pantry, and having given him a good meal, pressing him to eat as much as he wanted, led him forward. On the way he told him the ship was the Primrose, of 600 tons, bound out to the Mauritius, and that afterwards she was to visit other places in the Eastern Seas. Entering the seamen’s berth, he pointed to one of the standing bed-places on the side, and told him he might turn in and go to sleep as long as he liked. Little Peter, who had never before seen a black man, and fancied that all such were savages, was much surprised to hear him speak English and address him in so kind a manner.
“Thank you,” said Peter, “I do feel very sleepy, and am glad to go to bed.”
Before Peter took off his clothes, however, he knelt down, and from the bottom of his heart returned thanks to God for having preserved his life and brought him on board so fine a ship.
If Peter was surprised at the appearance of a black man, much more astonished was the latter at seeing the boy in the attitude of prayer. He stood a moment at the door gazing at him.
“What! the little chap pray and not afraid of being seen!” he muttered to himself; “that beats anything I ever heard; I can’t make it out.” Yet Emery did not feel angry at what he had seen; but as he went aft to attend to his duties, he kept muttering, “Dat is strange; he not afraid; can’t make it out.”
He was soon afterwards sound asleep, when the men, with a fellow-feeling for what he had gone through, took care not to arouse him, and he slept till breakfast time the next day.
Peter found a considerable difference between the crew of the Primrose and that of the Polly. They were generally a hearty, merry set; but, alas! he soon heard oaths and curses coming out of the lips of most of them. Some, too, were morose and ill-tempered and discontented with their lot, and all seemed utterly indifferent about their souls.
Peter, however, was treated kindly, though of course he had to perform the usual duties of a ship’s-boy, shared by the two other lads somewhat older than himself, apprentices on board.
The first day he got into the berth when no one was there, and was able to read his Bible without interruption for nearly an hour. He was thinking that it was time to go out lest he should be wanted, when a tall handsome lad entered the berth.