“Let me have a shot,” said the boatswain, taking one of them. “I seldom miss my aim.”
The captain, who had been below, just then coming on deck, observing what they were about, ordered them to desist, observing—
“I don’t wish to lower a boat to pick up the bird, and I consider it wanton cruelty to shoot at it.”
The boatswain pretended not to hear him, and taking aim, he fired. The bird was seen to let go its prey, and, after rising a few feet, to fall back with wings extended into the water, where it lay fluttering helplessly. The ship gliding on, soon left it astern.
“I consider that a piece of wanton cruelty, Mr Capstick,” exclaimed the captain. “I must prohibit the ship’s muskets being made use of for such a purpose; they are intended to be used against our enemies, not employed in slaughtering harmless birds.”
The boatswain returned the musket to the rack, muttering as he did so; but what he said neither the captain nor his mates were able to understand.
The ship had now nearly reached the latitude of the Falkland Islands, and in a short time she would be round Cape Horn, and traversing the broad waters of the Pacific. Hitherto few ships had been seen, either friends or foes; a lookout had been kept for the latter, as the crew hoped that, should they fall in with an enemy’s merchantman of inferior size, the captain would capture her to give them some much coveted prize-money. Two had been seen which were supposed to be small enough to attack, but the captain had declined going in chase of them, greatly to the annoyance of the crew; and the boatswain and others vowed they would not longer stand that sort of thing.
Walter was walking the deck during his middle watch the next night, when Dan Tidy came up to him.
“Hist, Mr Walter,” he said in a low voice. “Will you plaise just step to the weather-gangway, out of earshot of the man at the helm? I have got something I would like to say to you.”
Walter stepped to the gangway, and, seeing no one near, asked Tidy what he had to communicate.