"And run away with it," he said. "And when I say run I don't mean walk, either."
The sailors already had hold of the ropes, and they grinned when Captain Sol said that.
"Aye, aye, sir," they shouted.
And he ordered the other two men at the fore hatch and the other two men at the after hatch to be ready to handle and loose the bales and to be lively about it.
"All ready!" he called to the mates.
Then the fun began. The bales and the barrels and the boxes seemed to fly out of the hatchways and to alight on the deck like a flock of great birds. And the men who had to handle them and to cast off the hooks did it in the liveliest way that can be imagined, and they hustled the boxes and the barrels and the bales to one side so that there should be room for the next thing that came up. And there was a great noise of a lively chanty, that the sailors sang all the time, without stopping. It wasn't worth while to stop; for then, as soon as they had stopped singing, they would have to begin again, so they kept on all the time. And there was the soft noise of their bare feet stamping on the deck but they didn't stamp very hard because that would hurt their feet.
Pretty soon the bodies and the faces of the sailors began to glisten; and, before long, the sweat was running down in streams. For, working there, at that island, was just about the same as it would have been if they had been working at Charleston or Savannah in May. It was pretty hot for such hard work. But the sailors were merry at it, and grinned and shouted their chanty, and they kept at it until all the things were out on the deck of the Industry that had to be taken out. The things that were the heaviest they didn't take out, but just moved them to one side and left them in the hold.
By dinner time, they had all the cargo taken out that had to be taken out, and the heaviest freshly stowed in the middle of the ship at the very bottom. Then Captain Sol told the mates and the sailors to come up.
"There!" said he. "I'll bet dollars to buttons there never was a ship unloaded any quicker than we've unloaded this one. Now go to your dinner, and we'll finish this stowing this afternoon."
And he told the mate to serve out to the sailors a little rum. They had been working very hard and they would have a lot more hard work to do before the day was done. It was the custom, in those days, to serve out rum to the crew now and then; perhaps once a week. It wasn't a good custom, perhaps, but it was a custom. Captain Sol never once thought of breaking that custom, but he gave each man a very little, and then they had their dinner.