SAILING OF THE ARIADNE--CHISSEL'S CRUELTY--LOSS OF BOBBY SMUDGE--A HEAVY
SQUALL--BOBBY SMUDGE'S GHOST--REFLECTIONS THEREON.
Shortly after this we were ordered to get ready for sea, though our
destination was not known. Before we sailed, Major and Miss Norman
again came on board, and we heard that, his health being re-established,
they had taken their passage in a brig bound for England. We were very
sorry for this, as we feared that Mr Vernon would be wishing to go home
to marry, and that we should thus lose him. The next morning the
_Ariadne_, the brig in question, a remarkably fine vessel for an English
merchantman of those days (for a more detestable fleet of tubs were
never sent afloat), was seen to be getting up her anchor and loosing
topsails. Mr Vernon had gone away in the second gig at an early hour;
and she was now alongside, while he, with his boat's crew, were on
board. We could see him standing with Miss Blanche Norman on deck.
"More gallant knight or fairer lady never trod this mortal world," quoth
our poetical Third, as he took a sight at his brother officer through
his spy-glass.
I heard a deep sigh, and looking round, I saw Adam Stallman standing
near me; but his countenance was unmoved, and turning on his heel, he
continued pacing the deck as if he had been an unconcerned spectator of
what was going on. The anchor of the brig was run up to the bows and
catted; sail after sail was dropped from its brails and quickly sheeted
home; and under a wide spread of canvas the gallant craft came standing
out of the harbour.
"A prosperous voyage to you," shouted Mr Du Pre through his
speaking-trumpet, as she passed us.
He and all the officers took off their caps. Major Norman and the
master of the _Ariadne_ did the same, and Miss Norman bowed. It was a
trying moment for her, poor girl; for in a few minutes he whom she had
so lately learned to love must quit her for an indefinite period, to
buffet the rude winds and waves of the ocean, or, perchance, to endure
the dangers of the fight,--so said our third lieutenant, or something to
that effect. We watched the _Ariadne_, as long as her topsails appeared
above the horizon, with no little interest, for Mr Vernon's sake. He
at length came back, after a long pull, and was for several days
somewhat grave and abstracted at times; but that mood wore off by
degrees, and there was a buoyancy in his step, and a light in his eye,
which showed that he loved, and was conscious of being beloved in
return.
It would be impossible to give an account of all the minor adventures I
met with in the Mediterranean; but such as I can I will narrate.
Captain Poynder was very anxious to make his midshipmen gentlemen, and
to give us a knowledge of polite literature, as well as to instruct us
in navigation and seamanship. Accordingly he got a Maltese on board to
teach us Italian. Poor Signor Mezzi had never, I believe, been at sea
before; and though we tried to make him comfortable, and Dicky Sharpe
generally resisted the temptation to play him tricks--for he was certain
to be cobbed by the oldsters if he did,--I fear that his life was far
from a pleasant one. When we had completed our refit, and had stowed
away a supply of provisions, despatches were sent on board, and we were
ordered to proceed to Tripoli and Tunis. We made a very quick passage
to Tripoli, which is the capital of the most easterly of the Barbary
States. It boasts of a castle and port, and has a large harbour,
defended by a moat and batteries, capable of containing a considerable
fleet of merchantmen. We remained there a very short time, so I do not
remember much about the place, nor exactly for what purpose we went
there. There is another town of the same name in Syria, and they are
often confounded. Leaving Tripoli, we made sail for Tunis. It was on
this trip, if I remember rightly, that a circumstance occurred, which
for some time appeared wrapped in mystery. The adventure of the
rib-bone, in which Dicky Sharpe played so prominent a part, will be
remembered. Since that time, Ichabod Chissel, the carpenter, had led
his unfortunate boy, Bobby Smudge, a very dog's life. I fully believe,
however, that Master Smudge richly deserved every rope's-ending he got.
He was always dirty: he loved dirt, and nothing could keep him clean.
His honesty also was doubtful. While in Malta harbour, some of our
plate had disappeared. Our boy accused Bobby of taking it, though he
denied this, and, to our surprise, confessed that he knew where it was.
"Why, do you see, sir," he said to Stallman, who sat as judge on his
trial, "it somehow or other got into my tub of hot water, and I never
knowed it; and when I went to heave the water overboard, I then see'd
the glitter of it in the sea, as it sunk to the bottom."
The defence was ingenious, and as there was no witness to prove to the
contrary, Bobby escaped punishment on that occasion; though, as he had
been seen in deep confabulation with an ill-looking Jew a short time
afterwards, suspicion went much against him. From bad, things grew to
worse with Bobby Smudge. Not a day passed, scarcely an hour, that he
did not taste the flavour of a rope's-end--most frequently bestowed by
his master, the carpenter.
"You will be the death of me, I know you will, Master Chissel," he
groaned out one day, when his castigator was even severer than usual.
"I'll go and drown myself, that I will, if this goes on much longer--
you'll see if I don't. I won't stand it, that I won't;" and he
blubbered as few have blubbered before.
"You will, will you, you young scamp?" exclaimed the carpenter, seizing
a rope's-end. "Take that, then, and remember, when you come back from
the drowning of yourself, I'll give you six times as much." And poor
Bobby got it worse than ever.
I think Chissel was very wrong in the way he treated the poor wretch.
Had he been tolerably kind and considerate, he might, I am certain, have
worked on his good feelings, and certainly have improved him; but the
unhappy lad had from his earliest days been so constantly knocked about,
and so accustomed to receive more kicks than halfpence, that all his
better feelings had been pretty well beaten out of him.
It so happened that one evening, as the ship was running pretty fast
through the water, and as darkness was coming rapidly on, a loud splash
was heard alongside, and that cry, so startling to a seaman's heart, was
raised--"A man overboard!"
"Silence, fore and aft," sang out Captain Poynder, who at the same
moment appeared on deck. "Does anybody see him?"
There was no answer.
"Does anybody hear him?"
There was an ominous silence. A pin might have been heard to drop on
deck. The life-buoy had been let go at the first by the officer of the
watch. Its signal fire now burned bright astern, but no one was seen
clinging to it. There could be little doubt that the poor fellow,
whoever he was, had sunk at once. The ship had been running at the time
a few points off the wind. She was now brought close on a wind, and
then the helm was put down, and she was hove about with her head towards
the life-buoy. While she was in stays, the two quarter-boats were
manned and lowered. Mr Vernon jumped into one of them, and the master
into another; and as the frigate lost her way, they shoved off and
pulled in the direction of the spot where the man was supposed to have
fallen.
"Who can it be? Who is missing?" was asked by all hands, while we were
anxiously looking out towards the boats, to see if they were picking up
anybody.
When the ship reached the same locality, she was hove-to, and there we
remained till the boats, having picked up the life-buoy, returned on
board. They brought, however, too probable a sign of some one having
been lost--a boy's hat. It had been picked up exactly at the spot where
the ship was supposed to have been when the alarm was first given. The
ship's muster-roll was now called over, to ascertain who of the ship's
company was missing. One after the other had answered to their names,
and it had so nearly reached the end, that we began to hope there might
be some mistake after all, when that of Bobby Smudge was called. There
was no answer. Poor Bobby! There could be but little doubt that the
unfortunate wretch had put his threat of making away with himself into
execution, rather than longer endure the tyranny of Mr Chissel. I
hoped that the carpenter's accusing conscience would make him repent of
his cruelty. This surmise as to the poor boy's fate was confirmed the
next morning, when some of his clothes were discovered under the
forechains. The next day the chief conversation among the men was about
Bobby Smudge's suicide, and of the threats he had uttered of haunting
the ship. This led to the recounting of similar circumstances; and many
a forecastle yarn was spun that evening, abounding in horrors sufficient
to make the hairs of a less stout-hearted auditory stand on end. From
the extraordinary remarks I heard as I passed about the decks, I
declared, when I went to the berth, that I believed that some of the men
fully expected to see poor Bobby Smudge come in at one of the ports and
drive all hands out of the ship. A seaman will encounter anything
living and tangible with a hearty good-will; but he has a mortal
antipathy to meet any spirit, black, blue, white, or green, from the
nether world.
"I say, D'Arcy, it would be great fun if we could just manage to give
some of these fellows a fright," whispered Dicky Sharpe. "A white sheet
and a howl would do it. I could manage to imitate Bobby Smudge's voice,
and I should just like to look in on old Chissel when he is taking his
first snooze. I'd just mutter, `Bobby Smudge's ghost come to fetch you
away, you old sinner,' and his villainous conscience would do the rest."
"Don't play any such foolish trick, Dicky," said I. "You would
certainly be found out in the first place, and get severely punished
into the bargain. Besides, the matter is too serious to be turned into
a joke. Think of that poor unfortunate wretch, driven to despair, and
plunged suddenly into another world, through the cruelty and tyranny of
one who ought to have protected him, and tried to make him better!"
"But he was plunged into the sea," said Dicky, interrupting me; "and as
for the cruelty he received, I don't think he was so very much worse off
than numbers of other fellows in his position."
"I tell you, it is not a subject for joking on. Perhaps poor Bobby
Smudge had a mother and sisters who will mourn bitterly when the ship
returns home, and they find he is not in her."
"Dirty drabs, in all probability, who won't care a rap what has become
of him," persisted the incorrigible Dicky.
"For shame, Sharpe--for shame," said I; thinking how my cousins would
grieve for me if I were to be lost overboard. I began to feel a strange
sort of satisfaction at the idea. Sentiment, or whatever it might be
called, was very quickly put to flight by the shrill sound of the
boatswain's whistle, and the hoarse cry of "All hands--shorten sail!"
We were hurrying to our stations aloft as fast as our legs could carry
us--for the tones in which the order was issued showed us that there was
not a moment to be lost,--when, just as we were springing into the
rigging, a squall, which had but the moment before been perceived by the
officers of the watch, struck the ship. As ill-luck would have it, it
was the third lieutenant who had the first watch, and he happened to be
in a poetical mood, and deeply absorbed in composing an ode to Queen
Dido, or the Dodo--I don't remember which it was reported was the case--
one or the other, I know. The squall was a very heavy one: if not a
white squall, not inferior to it in strength and suddenness. The ship
rushed through the water, which was lashed in an instant into a sheet of
foam; the masts bent like wands, and looked as if they would instantly
go by the board. The helm was ordered to be put up; but before she
could answer it--stiff as she generally was--over she went, as if she
had been a mere skiff, till her yard-arms almost touched the water. It
appeared as if she would never right herself again. Then many a stout
heart quailed, and many a brave man gave himself up for lost; but,
dreadful as was the scene, discipline triumphed speedily over all
unworthy fears. Some of the ports were open, and the water rushed
through them in torrents. Such was the case with the one in our berth.
Poor Signor Mezzi, our Italian master, was sitting there. Never was a
poor wretch more completely horrified. He gave up all for lost, and
fancied that every moment the ship, and all in her, were going to the
bottom. The assistant-surgeon and captain's clerk, who were at the time
in the berth, each seized a pillow from the hammocks, which had just
before been piped down, and cramming them into the port with tolerable
effect, stopped the gush of water; but terror had too completely
mastered the poor dominie to allow him to observe what was going
forward. He shrieked out for mercy from every saint in the calendar,
and entreated one or all of them to carry him on shore, even if it was
but to the sandy coast of Africa. "_Ah! misericordia, misericordia,
misericordia_!" was the burden of his plaint.
"_E impossible_, signor. If you do go to the bottom, heretics though we
are, you will be in very goodly company," exclaimed Tourniquet. "And
then think of the magnificent feast we shall make for the fishes. Let
that be your consolation."
But poor Signor Mezzi refused to be comforted even by such a prospect;
and even our medico himself, when he found the ship still remaining in
her unusual position, and heard the uproar going on overhead, began to
entertain some very disagreeable doubts as to the possibility of the
event to which he was alluding actually occurring, and looked very blue
about the gills; whereat little Scribble, the clerk, laughed heartily at
him, and seated himself on the table, with his feet on the side of the
ship, affirming that he was not afraid, and was as contented and happy
as ever--the truth being, not that the young donkey was a bit more brave
than the other two, but that he had not the sense to know the danger he
was in, and that not a seaman on board but saw that the next moment
might be his last. Tourniquet had not the heart to move and give
Scribble a thrashing, or he would have done so. But to return on deck.
The instant the squall struck the ship, Captain Poynder hastened from
his cabin, and, seizing his speaking-trumpet, in a calm tone issued the
necessary orders.
"Down, every youngster, from the rigging. Clue up--haul down--let fly
of all!"
It was too late. Before the words were out of his mouth, the ship was
over on her beam-ends, and lay like a log, neither sails nor rudder
having longer power over her. To describe the wild horror of the scene
would be almost impossible. The rent sails flashing and flapping in the
gale; the ropes lashing furiously, as if in an attempt to seize some one
within their deadly coils; every timber quivering and groaning; the wind
roaring; and the foam in thick sheets flying over us. Though the helm,
as I have said, was hard up, still she lay in the trough of the sea,
without a hope of once more rising.
"Send the carpenter and his crew aft, with their axes," shouted the
captain.
Chissel and his mates quickly obeyed the summons, for he had seen from
the first that his services would too probably be required.
"Stand by, to cut away the masts," added Captain Poynder.
It was a melancholy alternative, but the only one to save the ship from
foundering. Afterwards we must trust to our anchors; and if they failed
to hold with the wind as it then was, we could not fail of being driven
on the inhospitable coast of Africa. And who could tell how many might
reach the shore alive!--perhaps none. The uplifted axes gleamed in the
hands of Chissel and his mates, as they stood round the mizen-mast;
others were sent to cut away the shrouds, and clear the wreck of the
mast as it fell. Once more Captain Poynder raised his trumpet to his
lips. It was to give the dire orders to cut, when, at that moment, the
ship with a violent jerk righted herself, and, speedily answering to the
helm, away she flew before the wind. As such a course would very
quickly have brought us up, sail was taken off her; and then, merely
under her spanker and fore-staysail, she was brought to the wind, for it
was discovered that the bowsprit was badly sprung, and that the topsail
sheets were carried away. Happily the squall, having vented its fury on
our heads, quickly passed over, and we were left with much less wind
than before.
"This is all that young beggar Bobby Smudge's doing, I'll warrant," I
heard Ned Grummit, a topman, exclaim, as he came down from aloft. "I
never knowed a chap of that sort who went for to go for to drown
hisself, if he threatened to do mischief, but found means to do it. I
knowed it would be so from the first, and we shall be lucky if worse
doesn't come of it."
I tried to expostulate with the man, for whom I had a liking, for he was
an honest fellow; but to no purpose. He still persisted in the belief
that poor Bobby, who, while alive, had never done anybody harm, was
destined to work us all sorts of mischief.
Everything had been made as snug as circumstances would allow. The
watch below had been piped down, and had turned in; and silence reigned
on board, and on the face of the ocean around us. It had been my watch
on deck, and I was just about being relieved, when the silence was
broken by a loud, unearthly cry; and the carpenter rushed on deck in his
shirt, his hair standing on end, and his eyeballs starting from their
sockets. Had not several men laid hold of him, I believe he would have
thrown himself overboard. He was carried back to his cabin, and the
doctor was summoned. All Chissel could say was, "Bobby Smudge! Bobby
Smudge! you young villain, be off with you!" The doctor gave him some
stuff or other, and the carpenter went off into a sound sleep; but a man
was ordered to sit up by his side, and watch him.
"Now," thought I, "this has been one of Dicky Sharpe's tricks, and all
my good advice has been thrown away." But when I looked into Dicky's
hammock, he was sleeping away with such unfeigned soundness that I could
scarcely fancy that he had played any trick; and the next morning he
assured me, on his word of honour, that he knew nothing whatever about
the matter. I had never known Dicky to tell an untruth, and I felt very
sure that he would not conceal anything he had done from me; indeed, the
great pleasure he had in playing any mischievous prank was, to tell me
of it afterwards, if I happened not to be a partaker of it,--a very rare
occurrence, by-the-bye.
"Suppose you had played your trick on old Chissel, and what he has seen
was really an evil spirit, how very dreadful it would have been for you
to have met the unnameable thing at his bedside!" said I.
"Oh! don't talk of such a thing," exclaimed Dicky, shuddering. "I am
sure I will never again think of carrying out such a joke as I
contemplated. The idea is too frightful."
I advised him not; and, after talking the subject over, and turning it
in every way, we came to the conclusion that, as no one else was likely
to have tried to frighten old Chissel, if he had not really seen a
ghost, his terror had been the result of his own evil conscience.
"Yes, it is a dreadful thing to have a bad conscience," said Dicky, with
a sigh. "Do you know, D'Arcy, I sometimes wish that I had not played so
many wild pranks in my life. I know that they will some time or other
bring me into trouble; and yet, when the fit seizes me, I cannot help
it. I wish that you would remind me of my good resolutions when I next
propose anything of the sort."
I promised that I would, but suggested that unless he had some higher
motive than the fear of being brought into trouble, he would in all
probability continue as great a pickle as ever, if he did not go on from
bad to worse. Indeed I read my chum a very severe lecture, which he
took with perfect composure, feeling at the time that he fully deserved
it; though I fear that he was not in the end very much the better for my
sage advice.
We were busy all day repairing damages as well as we could at sea; but
it was found that they were so considerable that the captain resolved to
return to Malta, instead of pursuing our course to Tunis. While the
work was going forward, a man in the forechains discovered a jacket and
waistcoat, which were known to have belonged to Bobby Smudge. This was
considered still stronger proof that the poor lad had destroyed himself,
as no doubt he had hung them there before jumping into the sea. Seamen
are certainly the most superstitious beings alive, for this trifling
matter made them talk the whole evening after they had knocked off work
about Bobby and his ways; and scarcely one but believed that his spirit
would haunt the ship as long as she remained in commission. The
crippled state of the ship prevented our making much sail on her, and as
we had frequently baffling winds, our voyage to Malta was considerably
prolonged.
Dirty Bob, as poor Bobby Smudge was generally called, excited far more
interest after his death than he had done during his lifetime, as is not
unfrequently the case with much greater men. The night succeeding the
squall passed off, as far as I know, quietly enough; but the next
morning I saw several groups of men talking together, as if something
mysterious had occurred.
"I knowed it would be so," said Ned Trunnion, as I passed by. "He was
as bold a topman as ever stepped. I knowed the little chap wouldn't let
us alone, after he'd given Mr Chissel a taste of his quality. No, no;
depend on't he'll haunt the ship for many a long day, if he don't manage
to run her ashore, or to send her to Davy Jones' locker outright."
"What's that about?" I asked, for I suspected the observation was
intended for my ears.
"Why, sir," said Tom Barlow, another topman, "Dirty Bob (saving your
presence) has been aboard again, a playing off his pranks, and many of
us see'd him as clear as we see you."
"Nonsense, man," said I. "If you mean Bobby Smudge, he's snug enough at
the bottom of the sea, fifty miles astern of us, by this time; besides,
if any of you saw him, why did you not catch him?"
"It wasn't 'xactly him we saw, sir," blurted out Ned. "It was his
spirit or ghost like; and a chap might just as well try to catch one of
them things as to grip an eel with greased fingers."
"How do you know it was his spirit, though?" I asked; for I suspected
that the men had been working on each other's imagination till all
fancied they had seen what perhaps only one had dreamed of.
"Why, sir," replied Tom Barlow, with a hitch to his waistband, "we
knowed it was him, because it was as like him as he could stare, only a
good deal blacker and dirtier even than he was in his lifetime. It had
just gone two bells in the middle watch, when three or four of us who
was awake saw him as plainly as we do you, sir, now--creeping about for
all the world like a serpent, in and out among the hammocks. It was
more, just then, than any one of us wished to do, to speak to him; but,
thinks I, there can't be any harm telling him to cut his stick, just
civilly like; so I lifts up my head, and sings out, `Be off, you dirty
son of a sea cook!' But scarcely was the words out of my mouth, than he
was away like a shot up the main-hatchway, and through one of the ports,
or right through the bottom of the ship, for what I knowed; for I
couldn't see, you may suppose. All the others who saw him said, too,
there was a strong smell of sulphur, wherever he'd been, and that he
vanished away in a flame of fire; but I can't 'xactly swear to that
myself."
I laughed outright at the absurdity of the story, and was more convinced
than ever that the men had allowed their imaginations to be worked up to
a pitch which would make them believe anything.
Dicky Sharpe and I talked the matter over, and agreed not to say
anything about it, as were the circumstances to get to the ears of the
captain, it would certainly make him very angry.
I thought we should hear no more about the matter; but two days after
this I found the people more busy than ever talking about Bobby Smudge's
ghost. Numbers declared they had seen it. Some described it as having
one shape, some another. Not a few gave it a tail, and horns, and fiery
eyes. All described it as black; and several were ready to affirm on
oath that it smelt strongly of sulphur and other horrible odours. At
length many of the men showed a great unwillingness to go below, and to
turn into their hammocks.
Old Chissel had become a completely altered character. His conscience
told him that he was the cause of poor Bobby's death. He grew thin and
pale; his voice was no longer heard in loud dispute with his brother
officer, the boatswain; and even his manner was softened towards his
inferiors. The men remarked the change; and all argued that the ghost
had done him some good at all events, though it certainly confirmed them
in their belief of its existence. Night after night, no sooner was it
dark, and the watch below turned in, than Dirty Bob's ghost was sure to
appear to some one or other; till at length the gun-room officers heard
of the matter, and ultimately the captain himself was informed of it.
At the same time a curious circumstance occurred. Every morning one or
other of the messes had to complain that their bread-bags had been
rifled, and different sorts of eatables had disappeared in a most
unaccountable manner. None of the men suggested for a moment that the
ghost had anything to do with the matter--for what could a ghost want
with biscuit, bacon, or cheese; but Captain Poynder, who at length heard
of this also, had, it appeared, formed a different notion on the
subject.
Two of the marines--steady old hands--who were ready to believe or
disbelieve in ghosts or spirits, and to fight carnal or spiritual
enemies in any shape or of any colour, as their superior officers might
command them, were sent for into the cabin. What their orders were I do
not know; but one of them, Jabez Cartridge, was placed that night as
sentry on the lower deck.
The first watch had nearly run out, and Jabez, who had his eyes about
him in every direction, had seen nothing of the ghost, when, as it had
just gone seven bells, he fancied that he observed a dark object gliding
about under the hammocks. He stood as upright and stiff as his own
ramrod. So immovable was he, that any one might have supposed him
asleep on his post; but his little black eyes were not the less
vigilant. The dark object moved slowly and cautiously on till it
reached the lockers, where the men's mess things were kept.
Jabez saw that it had hands, and, by the peculiar movement of those
hands, he came to the conclusion that it had pockets. Still a ghost
might have hands, and trousers too, for what he knew to the contrary.
To convince himself, he sprang forward, and the ghost, with an unearthly
shriek, took to flight; but Jabez was too quick for the phantom, and
grasping him tight, he sung out, "I don't care if you be a ghost or not,
but I've got you, at all events."
"Oh, let me go, let me go! and I'll lie snug and quiet till we get into
harbour, and then I'll leave the ship and never come back--that I
won't," answered the ghost, in piteous accents.
But Jabez was inexorable, and dragging him to the sentry's lantern, by
its sickly light discovered features which belonged to no other than
Bobby Smudge.
"Why, where have you been, you young scoundrel, all the time?" asked
Jabez.
"In the coal-hole," blubbered out poor Bobby. "I never thought of doing
harm to no one; but I can't live without eating. Oh! let me go back,--
oh! do, now."
"My order is to take you to the captain," replied Jabez, unmoved; and
forthwith to the captain's cabin the unhappy Smudge was led captive.
He was soon, however, sent out again under charge of the sentry, and
kept in durance vile till the next morning.
After breakfast the men were called aft; and the captain appeared on the
quarter-deck with Bobby, in the same garb and condition in which he had
been captured. He was truly a wretched object, as he stood trembling,
and blubbering, and covered with coal dust and dirt, before all the
crew.
"I have called you aft, my men, to show you how foolish you have been to
allow yourselves to be frightened by the equally foolish trick of this
miserable lad," said Captain Poynder. "I am not angry with you; but I
wish you to learn, from this event, that all the ghosts you are ever
likely to see will turn out to be no more ghosts than is this poor
fellow at the present moment. He confesses that to avoid punishment,
and in the hopes of ultimately escaping from the ship, he devised the
scheme for making it appear that he had destroyed himself. He managed,
it seems, to get a lump of coal in the forechains, and after heaving it
into the water, and crying out that a man was overboard, to get in at a
port, and to stow himself away in the coal-hole. Trusting to the
superstition and folly which the people have exhibited, he thought he
might venture out at night to supply himself with food. His plan
succeeded; and had the story not come to my ears, I conclude he would
have kept up the farce till the ship got into port. I ask, my men, do
you think it possible that God, who made this mighty universe, and
governs it by just and wise laws, would allow a mischievous imp, who
could do no harm while alive, to return to earth, merely for the sake of
wreaking his own petty malice, or for troubling and frightening a number
of grown men such as you are. To believe such a thing is both wicked
and absurd, for it is mistrusting God's wisdom and providence; and I
hope, when you come calmly to consider the matter over, you will think
as I do. I have another word to say, both to petty-officers and men.
The lad must have received much cruel treatment to make him attempt to
escape from it by the expedient he followed. Remember, for the future,
I will have no bullying. The discipline of the ship will be kept up far
better by strict justice. Had it not been for this, I should have
punished the lad severely for the prank he has played. As it is, he has
pretty well suffered already. But beware. If anybody attempts to
imitate his example, he will find I do not overlook the matter so
easily. Now pipe down."
The captain's speech did much good in several ways. It put a stop to
any outrageous bullying for some time; for the men knew perfectly well
that what he threatened he would effectually carry out. It also tended
to cure some of them of their superstitious belief in ghosts and
goblins.
"Well, I never heard the like afore," said Tom Barlow, as he and his
messmate, Ned Trunnion, were talking over the affair of the previous
day. "The skipper says as how there is no such thing as ghosts; and I
suppose, seeing as how he has as much larning as a parson, he knows all
about it. It don't come within my category, though."
"What he says is all shipshape," replied Ned. "I never yet met the man
who really did see a ghost, though I've met scores who've heard of some
one who's seen them, and for that matter come to fisticuffs with them;
and certain sure I never see'd one myself till that young cheese-nibble
made himself into one. Then, if he hadn't been found out, I'd have
staked my davy that he was one in reality."
"That is what the captain says," I remarked, as I stopped a moment.
"All the ghosts which have been seen will turn out to be only shams
after all."
But enough of Bobby Smudge and his ghost.