discovered in the Doldrums.
The Good Intent lay becalmed in the doldrums. There was not wind enough
to puff out a candle flame. The sails hung limp and idle from the masts,
yet the vessel rolled as in a storm, heaving on a tremendous swell so
violently that it would seem her masts must be shaken out of her. The air
was sweltering, the sky the color of burnished copper, out of which the
sun beat remorselessly in almost perpendicular beams. Pitch ran from
every seam of the decks, great blisters like bubbles rose upon the
woodwork; the decks were no sooner swabbed than--presto!--it was as
though they had not known the touch of water for an age.
For three weeks she had lain thus. Sometimes the hot day would be
succeeded by a night of terrible storm, thunder crashing around, the
whole vault above lacerated by lightning, and rain pouring as it were out
of the fissures in sheets. But in a day all traces of the storm would
disappear, and if, meanwhile, a sudden breath of wind had carried the
vessel a few knots on her southward course, the hopes thus raised would
prove illusory, and once more she would lie on a sea of molten lead, or,
still worse, would be rocked on a long swell that had all the discomforts
of a gale without its compensating excitement.
The tempers of officers and crew had gone from bad to worse. The officers
snapped and snarled at one another, and treated the men with even more
than the customary brutality of the merchant marine of those days. The
crew, lounging about half naked on the decks, seeking what shelter they
could get from the pitiless sun, with little to do and no spirit to do
anything, quarreled among themselves, growling at the unnecessary tasks
set them merely to keep them from flying at each other's throats.
The Good Intent was a fine three-masted vessel of nearly four hundred
tons, large for those days, though the new East Indiamen approached five
hundred tons. When her keel was laid for the Honorable East India Company
some twenty years earlier, she had been looked on as one of the finest
merchant vessels afloat; but the buffeting of wind and wave in a score of
voyages to the eastern seas, and the more insidious and equally
destructive attacks of worms and dry rot, had told upon her timbers. She
had been sold off and purchased by Captain Barker, who was one of the
class known as "interlopers," men who made trading voyages to the East
Indies on their own account, running the risk of their vessels being
seized and themselves penalized for infringing the Company's monopoly.
She was now filled with a miscellaneous cargo: wine in chests, beer and
cider in bottles, hats, worsted stockings, wigs, small shot, lead, iron,
knives, glass, hubblebubbles, cochineal, sword blades, toys, coarse
cloth, woolen goods--anything that would find a market among the European
merchants, the native princes, or the trading classes of India. There was
also a large consignment of muskets and ammunition. When Desmond asked
the second mate where they were going, the reply was that if he asked no
questions he would be told no lies.
On this sultry afternoon a group of seamen, clad in nothing but shirt and
breeches, were lolling, lying crouching on the deck forward, circled
around Bulger. Seated on an upturned tub, he was busily engaged in
baiting a hook. Tired of the "Irish horse" and salt pork that formed the
staple of the sailors' food, he was taking advantage of the calm to fish
for bonitos, a large fish over two feet long, the deadly enemy of the
beautiful flying fish that every now and then fell panting upon the deck
in their mad flight from marine foes. The bait was made to resemble the
flying fish itself, the hook being hidden by white rag stuffing, with
feathers pricked in to counterfeit spiked fins.
As the big seaman deftly worked with iron hook and right hand, he spun
yarns for the delectation of his mates. They chewed tobacco, listened,
laughed, sneered, as their temper inclined them. Only one of the group
gave him rapt and undivided attention--a slim youth, with hollow sunburnt
cheeks, long bleached hair, and large gleaming eyes. His neck and arms
were bare, and the color of boiled lobsters; but, unlike the rest, he had
no tattoo marks pricked into his skin. His breeches were tatters, his
striped shirt covered with party-colored darns.
"Ay, as I was saying," said Bulger, "'twas in these latitudes, on my last
voyage but three. I was in a Bristol ship a-carryin' of slaves from
Guinea to the plantations. Storms!--I never seed such storms nowhere; and
contrariwise, calms enough to make a Quaker sick. In course the water was
short, an' scurvy come aboard, an' 'twas a hammock an' round shot for one
or the other of us every livin' day. As reg'lar as the mornin' watch the
sharks came for their breakfast; we could see 'em comin' from all p'ints
o' the compass; an' sure as seven bells struck there they was, ten deep,
with jaws wide open, like Parmiter's there when there's a go of grog to
be sarved out. We was all like the livin' skellington at Bartlemy Fair,
and our teeth droppin' out that fast, they pattered like hailstones on
the deck."
"How did you stick 'em in again?" interrupted Parmiter, anxious to get
even with Bulger for the allusion to his gaping jaw. He was a thick set,
ugly fellow, his face seamed with scars, his mouth twisted, his ears
dragged at the lobes by heavy brass rings.
"With glue made out of albacores we caught, to be sure. Well, as I was
saying, we was so weak there wasn't a man aboard could reach the maintop,
an' the man at the wheel had two men to hold him up. Things was so, thus,
an' in such case, when, about eight hells one arternoon, the lookout at
the masthead--"
"Thought you couldn't climb? How'd he get there?" said the same skeptic.
"Give me time, Parmiter, and you'll know all about the hows an' whys,
notwithstandin's and sobeits. He'd been there for a week, for why? 'cos
he couldn't get down. We passed him up a quarter pint o' water and a
biscuit or two every day by a halyard.
"Well, as I was sayin', all at once the lookout calls out, 'Land
ho!'--leastways he croaked it, 'cos what with weakness and little water
our throats was as dry as last year's biscuit.
"'Where away?' croaks first mate, which I remember his name was Tonking.
"And there, sure enough, we seed a small island, which it might be a
quarter-mile long. Now, mind you, we hadn't made a knot for three weeks.
How did that island come there so sudden like? In course, it must ha'
come up from the bottom o' the sea. And as we was a-lookin' at it we saw
it grow, mateys--long spits o' land shootin' out this side, that side,
and t'other side--and the whole concarn begins to move towards us, comin'
on, hand over hand, slow, dead slow, but sure and steady. Our jaws were
just a-droppin' arter our teeth when fust mate busts out in a laugh; by
thunder, I remember that there laugh today! 'twas like--well, I don't
know what 'twas like, if not the scrapin' of a handsaw; an' says he, 'By
Neptune, 'tis a darned monstrous squid!'
"And, sure enough, that was what it was, a squid as big round as the Isle
o' Wight, with arms that ud reach from Wapping Stairs to Bugsby Marshes,
and just that curly shape. An' what was more, 'twas steerin' straight for
us. Ay, mateys, 'twas a horrible moment!"
The seamen, even Parmiter the scoffer, were listening open mouthed, when
a hoarse voice broke the spell, cutting short Bulger's story and
dispersing the group.
"Here you, Burke, you, up aloft and pay the topmost with grease. I'll
have no lazy lubbers aboard my ship, I tell you. I've got no use for
nobody too good for his berth. No Jimmy Duffs for me! Show a leg, or, by
heavens, I'll show you a rope's end and make my mark--mind that, my lad!"
Captain Barker turned to the man at his side.
"'Twas an ill turn you did me and the ship's company, Mr. Diggle,
bringing this useless lubber aboard."
"It does appear so, captain," said Diggle sorrowfully. "But 'tis his
first voyage, sir: discipline--a little discipline!"
Meanwhile Desmond, without a word, had moved away to obey orders. He had
long since found the uselessness of protest. Diggle had taken him on
board the Good Intent an hour before sailing. He left him to himself
until the vessel was well out in the mouth of the Thames, and then came
with a rueful countenance and explained that, after all his endeavors,
the owners had absolutely refused to accept so youthful a fellow as
supercargo. Desmond felt his cheeks go pale.
"What am I to be, then?" he asked quietly.
"Well, my dear boy, Captain Barker is rather short of apprentices, and he
has no objection to taking you in place of one if you will make yourself
useful. He is a first-rate seaman. You will imbibe a vast deal of useful
knowledge and gain a free passage, and when we reach the Indies I shall
be able, I doubt not, by means of my connections, to assist you in the
first steps of what, I trust, will prove a successful career."
"Then, who is supercargo?"
"Unluckily that greatness has been thrust upon me. Unluckily, I say; for
the office is not one that befits a former fellow of King's College at
Cambridge. Yet there is an element of good luck in it, too; for, as you
know, my fortunes were at a desperately low ebb, and the emoluments of
this office, while not great, will stand me in good stead when we reach
our destination, and enable me to set you, my dear boy--to borrow from
the vernacular--on your legs."
"You have deceived me, then!"
"Nay, nay, you do bear me hard, young man. To be disappointed is not the
same thing as to be deceived. True, you are not, as I hoped, supercargo,
but the conditions are not otherwise altered. You wished to go to
India--well, Zephyr's jocund breezes, as Catullus hath it, will waft you
thither: we are flying to the bright cities of the East. No fragile bark
is this, carving a dubious course through the main, as Seneca, I think,
puts it. No, 'tis an excellent vessel, with an excellent captain, who
will steer a certain course, who fears not the African blast nor the
grisly Hyades nor the fury of Notus--"
Desmond did not await the end of Diggle's peroration. It was then too
late to repine. The vessel was already rounding the Foreland, and though
he was more than half convinced that he had been decoyed on board on
false pretenses, he could not divine any motive on Diggle's part, and
hoped that his voyage would be not much less pleasant than he had
anticipated.
But even before the Good Intent made the Channel he was woefully
undeceived. His first interview with the captain opened his eyes. Captain
Barker was a small, thin, sandy man, with a large upper lip that met the
lower in a straight line, a lean nose, and eyes perpetually bloodshot.
His manner was that of a bully of the most brutal kind. He browbeat his
officers, cuffed and kicked his men, in his best days a martinet, in his
worst a madman. The only good point about him was that he never used the
cat, which, as Bulger said, was a mercy.
"Humph!" he said when Desmond was presented to him. "You're him, are you?
Well, let me tell you this, my lad: the ship's boy on board this 'ere
ship have got to do what he's bid, and no mistake about it. If he don't,
I'll make him. Now, you go for'ard into the galley and scrape the slush
off the cook's pans; quick's the word."
From that day Desmond led a dog's life. He found that as ship's boy he
was at the beck and call of the whole company. The officers, with the
exception of Mr. Toley, the melancholy first mate, took their cue from
the captain; and Mr. Toley, as a matter of policy, never took his part
openly. The men resented his superior manners and the fact that he was
socially above them. The majority of the seamen were even more ruffianly
than the specimens he had seen at the Waterman's Rest--the scum of
Wapping and Rotherhithe. His only real friend on board was Bulger, who
helped him to master the many details of a sailor's work, and often
protected him against the ill treatment of his mates; and, in spite of
his one arm, Bulger was a power to be reckoned with.
At the best of times the life of a sailor was hard, and Desmond found it
at first almost intolerable. Irregular sleep on an uncomfortable hammock,
wedged in with the other members of the crew, bad food, and over exertion
told upon his frame. From the moment when all hands were piped to lash
hammocks to the moment when the signal was given for turning in, it was
one long round of thankless drudgery. But he proved himself to be very
quick and nimble. Before long, no one could lash his hammock with the
seven turns in a shorter time than he. After learning the work on the
mainsails and trysails he was sent to practise the more acrobatic duties
in the tops, and when two months had passed, no one excelled him in
quickness aloft.
If his work had been confined to the ordinary seaman's duties he would
have been fairly content, for there is always a certain pleasure in
accomplishment, and the consciousness of growing skill and power was some
compensation for the hardships he had to undergo. But he had to do dirty
work for the cook, clean out the styes of the captain's pigs, swab the
lower deck, sometimes descend on errands for one or other to the nauseous
hold.
Perhaps the badness of the food was the worst evil to a boy accustomed to
plain but good country fare. The burgoo or oatmeal gruel served at
breakfast made him sick; he knew how it had been made in the cook's dirty
pans. The "Irish horse" and salt pork for dinner soon became distasteful;
it was not in the best condition when brought aboard, and before long it
became putrid. The strong cheese for supper was even more horrible. He
lived for the most part on the tough sea biscuit of mixed wheat and pea
flour, and on the occasional duffs of flour boiled with fat, which did
duty as pudding. For drink he had nothing but small beer; the water in
the wooden casks was full of green, grassy, slimy things. But the fresh
sea air seemed to be a food itself; and though Desmond became lean and
hollow cheeked, his muscles developed and hardened. Little deserving
Captain Barker's ill-tempered abuse, he became handy in many ways on
board, and proved to be the possessor of a remarkably keen pair of eyes.
When, in obedience to the captain's orders, he was greasing the mast, his
attention was caught by three or four specks on the horizon.
"Sail ho!" he called to the officer of the watch.
"Where away?" was the reply.
"On the larboard quarter, sir; three or four sail, I think."
The officer at once mounted the shrouds and took a long look at the
specks Desmond pointed out, while the crew below crowded to the bulwarks
and eagerly strained their eyes in the same direction.
"What do you make of 'em, Mr. Sunman?" asked the captain.
"Three or four sail, sir, sure enough. They are hull down; there's not a
doubt but they're bringing the wind with 'em."
"Hurray!" shouted the men, overjoyed at the prospect of moving at last.
In a couple of hours the strangers had become distinctly visible, and the
first faint puffs of the approaching breeze caused the sails to flap
lazily against the yards. Then the canvas filled out, and at last, after
nearly a fortnight's delay, the Good Intent began to slip through the
water at three or four knots.
The wind freshened during the night, and next morning the Good Intent was
bowling along under single-reefed topsails. The ships sighted the night
before had disappeared, to the evident relief of Captain Barker. Whether
they were Company's vessels or privateers he had no wish to come to close
quarters with them.
After breakfast, when the watch on deck were busy about the rigging or
the guns, or the hundred and one details of a sailor's work, the rest of
the crew had the interval till dinner pretty much to themselves. Some
slept, some reeled out yarns to their messmates, others mended their
clothes.
It happened one day that Desmond, sitting in the forecastle among the men
of his mess, was occupied in darning a pair of breeches for Parmiter. It
was the one thing he could not do satisfactorily; and one of the men,
after quizzically observing his well meant but ludicrous attempts, at
last caught up the garment and held it aloft, calling his mates'
attention to it with a shout of laughter.
Parmiter chanced to be coming along at the moment. Hearing the laugh, and
seeing the pitiable object of it, he flew into a rage, sprang at Desmond,
and knocked him down.
"What do you mean, you clumsy young lubber, you," he cried, "by treating
my smalls like that? I'll brain you, sure as my name's Parmiter!"
Desmond had already suffered not a little at Parmiter's hands. His
endurance was at an end. Springing up with flaming cheeks he leaped
towards the bully, and putting in practice the methods he had learned in
many a hard-fought mill at Mr. Burslem's school, he began to punish the
offender. His muscles were in good condition; Parmiter was too much
addicted to grog to make a steady pugilist; and though he was naturally
much the stronger man, he was totally unable to cope with his agile
antagonist.
A few rounds settled the matter; Parmiter had to confess that he had had
enough, and Desmond, flinging his breeches to him, sat down tingling
among his mates, who greeted the close of the fight with spontaneous and
unrestrained applause.
Next day Parmiter was in the foretop splicing the forestay. Desmond was
walking along the deck when suddenly he felt his arm clutched from
behind, and he was pulled aside so violently by Bulger's hook that he
stumbled and fell at full length. At the same moment something struck the
deck with a heavy thud.
"By thunder! 'twas a narrow shave," said Bulger. "See that, matey?"
Looking in the direction Bulger pointed, he saw that the foretopsail
sheet block had fallen on deck, within an inch of where he would have
been but for the intervention of Bulger's hook. Glancing aloft, he saw
Parmiter grinning down at him.
"Hitch that block to a halyard, youngster," said the man.
Desmond was on the point of refusing; the man, he thought, might at least
have apologized: but reflecting that a refusal would entail a complaint
to the captain, and a subsequent flogging, he bit his lips, fastened the
block, and went on his way.
"'Tis my belief 'twas no accident," said Bulger afterwards. "I may be
wrong, but Parmiter bears a grudge against you. And he and that there Mr.
Diggle is too thick by half. I never could make out why Diggle diddled
you about that supercargo business; he don't mean you no kindness, you
may be sure; and when you see two villains like him and Parmiter puttin'
their heads together, look out for squalls, that's what I say."
Desmond was inclined to laugh; the idea seemed preposterous.
"Why are you so suspicious of Mr. Diggle?" he said. "He has not kept his
promise, that's true, and I am sorry enough I ever listened to him. But
that doesn't prove him to be an out-and-out villain. I've noticed that
you keep out of his way. Do you know anything of him? Speak out plainly,
man."
"Well, I'll tell you what I knows about him."
He settled himself against the mast, gave a final polish to his hook with
holystone, and using the hook every now and then to punctuate his
narrative, began.
"Let me see, 'twas a matter o' three years ago. I was bo'sun on the
Swallow, a spanker she was, chartered by the Company, London to Calcutta.
There was none of the doldrums that trip, dodged 'em fair an' square; a
topsail breeze to the Cape, and then the fust of the monsoon to the
Hugli. We lay maybe a couple of months at Calcutta, when what should I do
but take aboard a full dose of the cramp, just as the Swallow was in a
manner of speakin' on the wing. Not but what it sarved me right, for what
business had I at my time of life to be wastin' shore leave by poppin' at
little dicky birds in the dirty slimy jheels, as they call 'em, round
about Calcutta!
"Well, I was put ashore, as was on'y natural, and 'twas a marvel I pulled
through--for it en't many as take the cramp in Bengal and live to tell
it. The Company, I'll say that for 'em, was very kind; I had the best o'
nussin' and vittles; but when I found my legs again there I was, as one
might say, high and dry, for there was no Company's ship ready to sail.
So I got leave to sign on a country ship, bound for Canton; and we
dropped down the Hugli with enough opium on board to buy up the lord
mayor and a baker's dozen of aldermen.
"Nearly half a mile astern was three small country ships, such as might
creep round the coast to Chittagong, dodgin' the pirates o' the
Sandarbands if they was lucky, and gettin' their weazands slit if they
wasn't. They drew less water than us, and was generally handier in the
river, which is uncommon full of shoals and sandbanks; but for all that I
remember they was still maybe half a mile astern when we dropped
anchor--anchors, I should say--for the night, some way below Diamond
Harbor. But to us white men the way o' these Moors is always a bag o'
mystery, and as seamen they en't anyway of much account. Well, it might
be about seven bells, and my watch below, when I was woke by a most
tremenjous bangin' and hullabaloo. We tumbles up mighty sharp, and well
we did, for there was one of these country fellows board and board with
us, and another foulin' our hawser. Their grapnels came whizzin' aboard;
but the first lot couldn't take a hold nohow, and she dropped downstream.
That gave us a chance to be ready for the other. She got a grip of us and
held on like a shark what grabs you by the legs. But pistols and pikes
had been sarved out, and when they came bundlin' over into the foc'sle,
we bundled 'em back into the Hugli, and you may be sure they wasn't
exactly seaworthy when they got there. They was a mixed lot; that we soon
found out by their manner o' swearin' as they slipped by the board, for
although there was Moors among 'em, most of 'em was Frenchies or
Dutchmen, and considerin' they wasn't Englishmen they made a good fight
of it. But over they went, until only a few was left; and we was just
about to finish 'em off, when another country ship dropped alongside, and
before we knew where we was a score of yellin' ruffians was into the
waist and rushin' us in the stern sheets, as you might say. We had to
fight then, by thunder! we did.
"The odds was against us now, and we was catchin' it from two sides. But
our blood was up, and we knew what to expect if they beat us. 'Twas the
Hugli for every man Jack of us, and no mistake. There was no orders,
every man for himself, with just enough room and no more to see the
mounseers in front of him. Some of us--I was one of 'em--fixed the flints
of the pirates for'ard, while the rest faced round and kept the others
off. Then we went at 'em, and as they couldn't all get at us at the same
time, owing to the deck being narrow, the odds was not so bad arter all.
'Twas now hand to hand, fist to fist, one for you and one for me; you
found a Frenchman and stuck to him till you finished him off, or he
finished you, as the case might be, in a manner of speakin'. Well, I
found one lanky chap--he was number four that night--and all in ten
minutes, as it were, I jabbed a pike at him, and missed, for it was hard
to keep footin' on the wet deck, though the wet was not Hugli water;
thick as it is, this was thicker--and he fired a pistol at me by way of
thank you. I saw his figurehead in the flash, and I shan't forget it
either, for he left me this to remember him by, though I didn't know it
at the time."
Here Bulger held up the iron hook that did duty for his left forearm.
Then glancing cautiously around, he added in a whisper:
"'Twas Diggle--or I'm a Dutchman. That was my fust meetin' with him. Of
course, I'm in a way helpless now, being on the ship's books, and he in a
manner of speakin' an orficer; but one of these days there'll be a
reckonin', or my name en't Bulger."
The boatswain brought down his fist with a resounding whack on the
scuttle butt, threatening to stave in the top of the barrel.
"And how did the fight end?" asked Desmond.
"We drove 'em back bit by bit, and fairly wore 'em down. They weren't all
sailormen, or we couldn't have done it, for they had the numbers; but an
Englishman on his own ship is worth any two furriners--aye, half a dozen
some do say, though I wouldn't go so far as that myself--and at the last
some of them turned tail and bolted back. The ship's boy, what was in the
shrouds, saw 'em on the run and set up a screech: 'Hooray! hooray!' That
was all we wanted. We hoorayed too; and went at 'em in such a slap-bang
go-to-glory way that in a brace of shakes there wasn't a Frenchman, a
Dutchman, nor a Moor on board. They cut the grapnels and floated clear,
and next mornin' we saw 'em on their beam ends on a sandbank a mile down
the river. That's how I fust come across Mr. Diggle; I may be wrong, but
I says it again: look out for squalls."
For some days the wind held fair, and the ship being now in the main
track of the trades, all promised well for a quick run to the Cape. But
suddenly there was a change; a squall struck the vessel from the
southwest. Captain Barker, catching sight of Desmond and a seaman near at
hand, shouted:
"Furl the top-gallant sail, you two. Now show a leg, or, by thunder, the
masts will go by the board."
Springing up the shrouds on the weather side, Desmond was quickest aloft.
He crawled out on the yard, the wind threatening every moment to tear him
from his dizzy, rocking perch, and began with desperate energy to furl
the straining canvas. It was hard work, and but for the development of
his muscles during the past few months, and a naturally cool head, the
task would have been beyond his powers. But setting his teeth and
exerting his utmost strength, he accomplished his share of it as quickly
as the able seaman on the lee yard.
The sail was half furled when all at once the mast swung through a huge
arc; the canvas came with tremendous force against the cross trees, and
Desmond, flung violently outwards, found himself swinging in midair,
clinging desperately to the leech of the sail. With a convulsive movement
he grasped at a loose gasket above him, and catching a grip, wound it
twice or thrice round his arm. The strain was intense; the gasket was
thin and cut deeply into the flesh; he knew that should it give way
nothing could save him. So he hung, the wind howling around him, the
yards rattling, the boisterous sea below heaving as if to clutch him and
drag him to destruction.
A few seconds passed, every one of which seemed an eternity. Then through
the noise he heard shouts on deck. The vessel suddenly swung over, and
Desmond's body inclined towards instead of from the mast. Shooting out
his arm he caught at the yard, seized it, and held on, though it seemed
that his arm must be wrenched from the socket. In a few moments he
succeeded in clambering on to the yard, where he clung, endeavoring to
regain his breath and his senses.
Then he completed his job, and with a sense of unutterable relief slid
down to the deck. A strange sight met his eyes. Bulger and Parmiter were
lying side by side; there was blood on the deck; and Captain Barker stood
over them with a marlinspike, his eyes blazing, his face distorted with
passion. In consternation Desmond slipped out of the way, and asked the
first man he met for an explanation.
It appeared that Parmiter, who was at the wheel when the squall struck
the ship, had put her in stays before the sail was furled, with the
result that she heeled over and Desmond had narrowly escaped being flung
into the sea. Seeing the boy's plight, Bulger had sprung forward, and,
knocking Parmiter from the wheel, had put the vessel on the other tack,
thus giving Desmond the one chance of escape which, fortunately, he had
been able to seize. The captain had been incensed to a blind fury, first
with Parmiter for acting without orders and then with Bulger for
interfering with the man at the wheel. In a paroxysm of madness he
attacked both men with a spike; the ship was left without a helmsman, and
nothing but the promptitude of the melancholy mate, who had rushed
forward and taken the abandoned wheel himself, had saved the vessel from
the imminent risk of carrying away her masts.
Later in the day, when the squall and the captain's rage had subsided,
the incident was talked over by a knot of seamen in the forecastle.
"You may say what you like," said one, "but I hold to it that Parmiter
meant to knock young Burke into the sea. For why else did he put the ship
in stays? He en't a fool, en't Parmiter."
"Ay," said another, "and arter that there business with the block, eh?
One and one make two; that's twice the youngster has nigh gone to Davy
Jones through Parmiter, and it en't in reason that sich-like things
should allers happen to the same party."
"But what's the reason?" asked a third. "What call has Parmiter to have
such a desperate spite against Burke? He got a lickin', in course, but
what's a lickin' to a Englishman? Rot it all, the youngster en't a bad
matey. He've led a dog's life, that he have, and I've never heard a
grumble, nary one; have you?"
"True," said the first. "And I tell you what it is. I believe Bulger's in
the right of it, and 'tis all along o' that there Diggle, hang him! He's
too perlite by half, with his smile and his fine lingo and all. And
what's he keep his hand wropt up in that there velvet mitten thing for?
I'd like to know that. There's summat mortal queer about Diggle, mark my
words, and we'll find it out if we live long enough."
"Wasn't it Diggle brought Burke aboard?"
"Course it was; that's what proves it, don't you see? He stuffs him up as
he's to be supercargo; call that number one. He brings him aboard and
makes him ship boy; that's number two. He looks us all up and down with
those rat's eyes of his, and thinks we're a pretty ugly lot, and Parmiter
the ugliest, how's that for number three? Then he makes hissel sweet to
Parmiter; I've seed him more'n once; that's number four. Then there's
that there block: five; and today's hanky panky: six; and it wants one
more to make seven, and that's the perfect number, I've heard tell, 'cos
o' the Seven Champions o' Christendom."
"I guess you've reasoned that out mighty well," drawled the melancholy
voice of Mr. Toley, who had come up unseen and heard the last speech.
"Well, I'll give you number seven."
"Thunder and blazes, sir, he en't bin and gone and done it already?"
"No, he en't. Number seven is, be kind o' tender with young Burke. Count
them words. He's had enough kicks. That's all."
And the melancholy man went away as silently as he had come.