Peter looked up at me with a half-reproachful glance as he answered—
“No, no, sir. You wouldn’t wish me to go and take service with any strangers in these foreign parts; and in the old country there’s no home for me now—all those who made it home are gone. No, no, sir, you’d not wish me to leave you.”
“Certainly not, my lad; but I thought that you might be afraid of going on,” I remarked.
“Afraid when I am with you, sir!” he exclaimed, in a tone which showed how much his feelings were hurt at the supposition. “No, no, sir; I’ll stick by you through thick and thin, now and ever, till you turn me away.”
I was sure that Peter felt what he said, and setting as I do a high value on a faithful friend, however humble he may be, I assured him that he need be under no apprehension that I should part with him without his consent.
This tranquillised him, and he seemed at once to become reconciled to his life on the heaving wave.
I soon discovered that the Weathercock was far from deserving the character which her agents gave her of a fine clipper sea-boat, and that Captain Parsons was a different sort of person to what he had been described. He was not drunk when he came on board, but he very soon got so; and if he turned out sober in the morning, he took care very quickly to reduce himself to a condition of utter indifference to all sublunary affairs. As may be supposed, therefore, he did not make a very direct course for his destination.
While the weather remained fine, this did not so much signify, as a day or two more at sea was of little consequence to me, and I knew that we could not well miss the yellow water at the mouth of the Mississippi; but should it come on to blow—no impossible contingency—we should, I saw, be placed in a very unpleasant predicament. Still there was no help for it; the skipper would not have put back had I asked him, but very likely, in a drunken fit, might have blown my brains out, or pitched Peter overboard.
The mate was likely to prove a more formidable opponent. He was a huge Mulatto, with a villainous expression of countenance. From my first stepping on board, he seemed to have taken a dislike to me. It might have been because he saw that I was a man not likely to stand nonsense. He dared not show it to me, however; but whenever he had an opportunity, I saw that he gave Peter a cuff and Ready a kick, which, as may be supposed, secured the latter as an enemy, though poor Peter was too kind-hearted to indulge in ill-feeling towards any human being. Sam Snag, the fellow was called, and he tyrannised over the crew, who dared not disobey his least command, and even the captain held him in awe, and disliked him; but they were necessary to each other. Sam Snag, though a good seaman, knew nothing of navigation, and therefore could not get the command of a vessel, and so he had to ship as mate, and preferred serving with a man like Parsons, whom he could govern, rather than with one who would govern him.
Why the mate had allowed the captain to get as drunk as he was puzzled me. I could not help suspecting that he had some sinister object in view.