"Mainsail haul!" and the ponderous yards were swung round as the _Denver
City_ payed off handsomely, close-reefed as she was, on the starboard
tack, shaping a course at a good right angle to her former one, so as
now to weather the Smalls light, off the Pembroke shore, at the entrance
to the Bristol Channel--a course that required a stiff lee helm, and
plenty of it, as the wind had now fetched round almost due south, well
before the beam.
"Thet will do, the watch!" then called out Captain Snaggs once more; but
the men were not to be taken in a second time, and waited, grouped about
the hatchway, to see whether he would call them back again.
He did not, however.
So, their stopping there made him angry.
"Thet'll do, the watch! D'ye haar?" he shouted a second time. "If ye
want to go below fur y'r grub, ye'd better go now, fur, I guess I won't
give ye another chance, an' yer spell in the fo'c's'le 'll soon be up.
Be off with ye sharp, ye durned skallawags, or I'll send ye up agen to
reef tops'ls!"
This started them, and they disappeared down the hatchway in `a brace of
shakes,' the skipper turning round to the first-mate then, as if waiting
for him to suggest some further little amusement for the afternoon.
Mr Jefferson Flinders was quite equal to the occasion.
"Didn't you call all hands, cap, jist now?" asked he, with suspicious
innocence; "I thought I kinder heerd you."
"Guess so," replied Captain Snaggs. "Why?"
"'Cause I didn't see thet precious nigger rascal, Sam Jedfoot. The
stooard an' thet swab of a Britisher boy ye fetched aboard at Liverpool
wer thaar, sir, an' every blessed soul on deck but thet lazy nigger."
"'Deed, an' so it wer, I guess," said the captain musingly, as if to
himself; and then he slipped back from the binnacle, where he had been
talking to the first-mate, to his original position on the break of the
poop, when, catching hold of the brass rail as before, he leant over and
shouted forward at the pitch of his twangy voice; "Sam Jedfoot, ye
durned nigger, ahoy thaar! Show a leg, or ye'll lump it!"