This crew were mostly "beach-combers," men who had joined the ship during the voyage, many of them in the last port, and knew little and cared less about the history of the voyage previous to the time they shipped. They were full of tales of their adventures in other vessels from which they had deserted or been discharged, and of encounters with consuls, captains of the port, vigilantes, and other functionaries, commonly regarded as Jack's natural enemies; while those luckless shipmasters who had availed themselves of their services must have lived in perpetual jeopardy during the time they remained on board.
I inquired of the man upon whom I was quartered at supper, "how long the ship was out."
"That's more than I can tell you," returned the cruiser. "I've been only four months in this hooker. There's Dan and 'Shorty,' they are the only two men in the fo'c'stle that came from home in her. They can tell you; all the rest of us are cruisers."
"Where did you join her?" I asked.
"In Oahu. I ran away from the Cambridge, of New Bedford, and stowed away here in the fore peak. The 'kikos' came aboard three times, hunting for runaway men; but I'll defy any kiko to catch me."
"What's a kiko?" I inquired.
"That's what they call the Kanaka policemen. They used to come down and take off the fore peak scuttle, and look down, and shove their sticks in; but you see they don't have but one pair of white trousers apiece, and don't mean to get 'em dirty. But if any kiko had crawled in where I was, he wouldn't have got out again alive."
"Why not?" I inquired, innocently.
"'Cause I'd have let daylight through him!"
I looked at the speaker reflectively, and involuntarily hitched a little further from him on the chest, feeling somewhat doubtful of close companionship with so dangerous a character. Yet the probability is, this man was as arrant a Falstaff as could be found in a day's journey.