CHAPTER IX.

I FIGHT VAN LAAR.

The Dutch mate rounded suddenly. The insipid and meaningless layers of fat which formed his face were quickened by an expression of surprise. He had pulled his cloth cap off on entering, and now worried it between his hands as he stared at Greaves. His mind worked slowly. Presently he gathered from the looks of Greaves that he was to expect something unpleasant, on which he said:

“I do not wish to sit down. Vy der doyvil should I sit down? Vot hov you to say, Captain Greaves?”

“You are already aware that I am dissatisfied with you,” said Greaves.

“’Ow vhas dot?”

“I desire no words. Enough if I tell you simply that you do not suit me.”

“Vy der doyvil did you engage me, den?”

“I was misled by Mynheer Tulp, who was misled by Mynheer somebody else,” answered Greaves, admirably controlling his voice, but nevertheless sternly surveying the man whom he addressed. “I was told that you knew your duty as a seaman and as a mate, but you are so ignorant of your duty that I will no longer trust you on my quarter-deck.”

“Vy der doyvil did you ask me to schip? If I do not know my duty, vhas dere a half-drown man ash we drag on boardt dot can teach her to me?”

“I do not choose to go into that,” exclaimed Captain Greaves calmly. “I presume you are not so ignorant of the sea but that you know what my powers as a commander are?”

“Hey! you speaks too vast for me.”

The captain slowly and deliberately repeated his remark.

“Oh, yes,” exclaimed Van Laar, with a slow sideways motion of the head. “I need not to be instrocted as to dere powers of a commander, nor do I need to be instrocted as to dere rights of dose who sail oonder her. I vhas your mate; vhat hov you to say against dot?”

“Which will you do,” said Greaves, with a note of impatience in his voice, “will you take the place of second mate, in the room of Yan Bol, who will be glad to be relieved of that trust, or will you go home by the first ship that’ll receive you?”

Van Laar looked from Greaves to me, and from me to Greaves, and putting his cap upon the table, and thrusting his immensely fat hands into his immensely deep trousers’ pockets, he exclaimed, with a succession of nods:

“Dis vhas a consbiracy.”

“Conspiracy or no conspiracy,” said Greaves, scarcely concealing a smile, “you will give me your answer at once, if you please. My mind is made up.”

“Dis vhas your doing,” said Van Laar, looking at me; and he pulled his right hand out of his pocket and held it clenched.

“Make no reference to that gentleman,” cried Greaves, “I am the captain of this ship, and all that is done is of my doing. I await your answer.”

“Vy der doyvil,” said Van Laar deliberately, with his eyes fastened upon my face, “vhas not you drown? Shall I tell you? Because you vhas reserve for anoder sort of end,” and here he bestowed a very significant nod upon me.

I felt the blood in my cheeks. I could have whipped him up the steps and overboard for talking to me like that. I looked at Greaves, met his glance, bit my lip, and held my peace.

“Which will you do, Mr. Van Laar?” said Captain Greaves. “If you do not answer for yourself I will find an answer for you.”

“Gott, but I hov brought my hogs, as you English say, to a pretty market. I am dere servant of Mynheer Bartholomew Tulp.”

“I am master of this ship and you are my mate. I can break you and send you forward. I can have you triced up and your broad breech ribbanded. I can swing you at the yardarm till your neck is as long as an emu’s. Why do I tell you this? Because you are ignorant of the sea and must learn that my powers are not to be disputed by any man under me, from you down, or, as I would rather say, from you up,” he added, with a sarcastic sneer.

“Vhat vhas your offer?” said the mate.

There was a perversity in this man’s stupidity that was very irritating. The captain quietly named again the alternative.

“Vat vhas dis voyage about?” inquired the mate.

“That is my affair.”

The Dutchman stood gazing at one or the other of us. He then put on his cap and saying, “I vill schmoke a pipe in my bed und tink him out,” he made a step toward his berth.

“I must have your answer by six o’clock,” said the captain.

The mate, taking no notice of Greaves’ remark, entered his berth and closed the door.

Greaves and I were silent upon the man’s behavior; he was so absolutely and helplessly in the power of his captain that the sense of fairplay would not suffer us to speak of him.

“I will tell Jimmy,” said Greaves, “to get the slop chest up, and you can overhaul it for the clothes you require. You will want a chest; that can be managed. What else will you require? Your bedroom needs furnishing. I can lend you a razor and give you a hairbrush. Linen and boots you will find among the slops. As to wages—we will arrange it thus: I shall give a written undertaking to each of the crew, on announcing to them the purpose of this voyage. In my undertaking to you, in which I shall state your share, I can name the wages agreed upon—ten pounds a month, starting from to-day, which of course, I will make a note of in my log book. Does this meet your views?”

“Handsomely,” I answered.

He left his seat.

“With your leave, captain,” said I, “it is captain now; it shall be sir anon.”

“No, no,” he interrupted, “not the least need; not as between you and me, Fielding. In the presence of the crew and in the interests of discipline, why, perhaps it had better be an occasional sir for me, you know, and a mister for you, d’ye see? But the words may be uttered with our tongues in our cheeks. What were you going to say?”

“That with your leave, I will at once write a letter to my uncle Captain Joseph Round, relating my adventures, telling him where I am, but not where I am bound to, and requesting him to communicate with Captain Spalding, that my wages may be sent to my uncle at Deal. We may fall in with a ship in any hour and I will have a letter ready.”

“Right,” he exclaimed, “you will find pen and ink and paper in my cabin;” and he sprang up the hatch, whistling cheerily, as though his mind were extraordinarily relieved, not indeed through my agreeing to serve under him—oh no, I am not such a coxcomb as to believe that—but because he had as good as cleared Van Laar off his quarter-deck.

I entered his berth, and finding the materials I required for producing a letter, I returned to the cabin, seated myself at the table, and began a letter to my uncle Joseph. The chair I occupied was at the forward end of the table, and when I raised my eyes from the paper, I commanded both the captain’s and the mate’s berths. It was about half-past four. There was plenty of daylight; the windy westering sunshine came and went upon the cabin skylight with the sweep of the large masses of vapor across the luminary. The roar of frothing waters alongside penetrated dully. The lift of the brig was finely buoyant and rhythmic, insomuch that you might almost have made time out of the swing of a tray over the table, as you make time out of the oscillations of a pendulum.

I had nearly completed my letter when, happening to lift my head to search the skylight for a thought, or perhaps for the spelling of a word, I beheld the fat countenance of Van Laar surveying me from his doorway. On my looking at him he withdrew his head, with a manner of indecision. I went on writing. The lad Jimmy came into the cabin, followed by Galloon. The boy, as I call him, busied himself, and I went on with my letter, the dog jumping on to the chair which he occupied at meals, and watching me. Presently, looking up, I again perceived Van Laar’s head in his doorway. Once more he withdrew, but at the instant of signing my letter, I heard a strange noise close beside me; I seemed to smell spirits; I raised my eyes. Van Laar stood at the table, leaning upon it, and breathing very heavily; his breathing, indeed, sounded like a saw cutting through timber; his little eyes were uncommonly fierce and fiery, and the flesh of his face of a dull red. The moment my gaze met his, he exclaimed:

“You vhas a broodelbig!”

His accent was so much broader than the spelling which I have endeavored to convey it in that I did not understand him. I believed he had applied some injurious Dutch word to me.

“What do you say?” I exclaimed.

“I should like to know,” said he, fingering the cuffs of his coat as though he meant to turn them up, “vhat sort of a man you vhas. Who vhas you? ’Ow vhas it you vhas half drown? ’Ow comes you into dere water? Vhas you chooked overboart? Maype you vhas a pirate? I should like to know some more about you. Vhat schip vhas yours? Have you a farder? Vere vhas you porn?”

“Return to your cabin and finish your pipe and bottle,” said I. “Do not meddle with me, I beg you.”

“Meddle! Vhat vhas dot? Meddle; I must hov satisfaction of my questions. My master is Mynheer Tulp. Am I to give oop my place to a half-drown man, vhen I hov agree for der voyage mit Mynheer Tulp’s consent?” He swelled his breast and roared—“No beast of an Englishman shall take dere place of Van Laar in a schip dot vhas own by Mynheer Tulp.” He then smote the table furiously with his fist, and, putting his face close to mine, he thundered out—“You are a broodelbig!” Now I understood him to mean “a brutal pig,” my ear having, perhaps, been educated by his previous speech.

“Jimmy,” I exclaimed, “hold the dog!” and, with the back of my hand, I slapped the Dutchman heavily on the nose.

The dog growled. Jimmy sprang and clasped the creature round the neck, holding him in a vise, and grinning with every fang in his head between the dog’s ears. A fight to an English lad, himself clasping a growling dog to his heart! Match him such another joy if you can!

Having struck Van Laar, I stood up and immediately pulled off my coat and waistcoat. Van Laar also undressed himself, and, while he did so, he bawled out:

“I vhas sorry for you. Better for you had you never been porn. If I vhas you, I like some more to be drown or hang dan to be you.”

He stripped himself to his flesh, keeping nothing but his trousers on, and stood before me like a vast mass of yellow soap. He was drenched with perspiration. Galloon barked hoarsely at him. I was almost disposed to regard this exhibition of himself as an appeal to my sensibility. He was shaped like a dugong—after the pattern, indeed, of one of the most corpulent of those interesting marine epicenes. He opposed to me a ton of infuriate flesh. How could I strike it, or rather where? It would be like plunging my fist into a full slush-pot.

“Dere better der man dere better der mate!” he roared. “call upon Cott, if you belief in Him, to help you. Dere better der man dere better der mate! Goom on!”

Poising his immense fists close against his face, he approached me, and then, hoping perhaps to end the business at a coup he rushed upon me, whirling both his arms with the velocity of a windmill in a strong breeze. I took a step and planted a blow, but not without compunction, for I saw that the poor devil had no science. I say I planted a blow in his right eye, which instantly took a singular expression of leering. I backed and he followed, still swinging his arms; and certainly, had I permitted one of those rotary fists to descend upon my head, I must have gone down as though to the blow of a handspike. But alas! for poor Van Laar. He knew nothing of boxing, and I was well versed in that art. I dodged him for a while, hoping that, by winding him, I should be able to bring the battle to a bloodless close. But the fellow had very remarkable staying powers; he seemed unnaturally strong in the wind considering his tonnage. He continued to thrash the air, seeking to rush upon me, while he thundered:

“Dere better der man, dere better der mate!”

So, to end the business, I knocked him down. He fell flat and heavily upon his back. Jimmy roared with laughter, and Galloon barked furiously at the yellow heap on the deck, straining in the lad’s arms to get at it. Greaves came into the cabin. He stopped when in the companion way, and stared at the motionless figure of Van Laar.

“Is the man killed?” cried he.

“Oh, dear, no,” I answered. “He’s only resting.”

“What is all this about?” he demanded.

I told him how it had come about, but when I repeated the insulting expression which had been twice made use of, Van Laar sat up and said:

“It vhas true, but I will fight no more mit you. I allow dot you are der better man. I said, ’Dere better der man, dere better der mate,’ and dat shall be as Cott pleases.”

“Go to your cabin, sir!” cried Greaves, looking at him with disgust; but, on Van Laar turning his face, the captain’s countenance relaxed.

The Dutchman’s eye was closed, and it painted upon his countenance the fixed expression of a wink; otherwise he was not hurt. I had known how to fell him without greatly injuring him or drawing blood, and the worst of the knockdown blow I had administered lay in the shock of the fall of his own weight.

“Go to your cabin, sir,” repeated the captain, “and keep to it. Consider yourself under arrest. Your brutal conduct now determines me to clear the ship of you, and you shall be sent home by the first vessel that I can speak.”

“You vhas in a hurry,” said Van Laar, getting on to his legs, and beginning to pick up his clothes: “had you vaited you would have foundt me first. It vhas me,” he roared, striking his fat chest, “who tell you, and not you who tell me, dot I leave for goot dis footy hooker. But stop,” cried he, wagging his fat forefinger at the captain, “till I see Mynheer Tulp. Den I vhas sorry for you,” and thus speaking he went to his cabin, bearing his clothes with him.

I put on my coat and waistcoat, and exclaimed, “I am truly grieved that this should have happened. Yonder lad Jimmy witnessed the fellow’s treatment of me.”

“There is nothing to regret,” said Greaves. “Yes, I regret that you did not punish him more severely. He knows that you have been insensible for three days, and the coward, no doubt, counted upon finding you weak after your illness.”

“It is well for him,” said I, “that he should have made up his mind at once that I am the better man. I felt a sort of pity for the shapeless bulk when I saw it rushing upon me, with its arms whirring like the flails of a thresher upon a whale. A fellow apprentice of mine, in the third voyage I made, was the son of a prize-fighter. He had learnt the art from his father, and claimed to have his science. Many a stand-up affair happened between this youth and me, during our watches below. He showed me every trick at last, though the education cost my face some new skins.”

“If Van Laar shows himself on deck, or indeed, if he leaves his berth, I’ll clap him in irons,” said Greaves. “Meanwhile, Fielding, you will enter upon your duties at once, providing you feel strong enough.”

“Perfectly strong enough,” said I.

“Very well,” said he, “you will relieve Yan Bol at four bells, and I will call the crew aft and tell them that you are mate of the Black Watch.”

So here now was I chief mate of a smart brig, with ten pounds a month for wages, not to mention the six thousand pounds I was to take up if we brought our cargo of dollars home in safety. Truthfully had I told Greaves that my adventures at sea had been few, but surely now life was making atonement for her past beggarly provision of strange, surprising experiences, by the creation of incidents incomparably romantic and memorable, as I will maintain before the whole world, was that incident of the gibbet, on the sand hills near Deal.

When I reached the deck I found a noble, flying, inspiriting scene of swelling and cleaving and foaming brig and ocean curling southward. Through the luster of an angry, glorious sunset, the froth flew in flakes of blood, and every burst of white water from the courtesying bows was crimson with sparkles as of rubies. I wondered, when I looked at the see-saw sloping of the deck, how on earth the Dutchman and I had managed to keep our pins while we fought. Yet, why did I wonder? I found myself standing beside the captain, no more sensible than he of a swing and sway that when it came to a roll was roof-steep often, gazing forward with him at the crew, who were assembling in response to the boatswain’s summons, preparatory to laying aft.

This was a small business and promptly dispatched. Two men were at the wheel, and eight men, leaving Jim Vinten out, came to the mainmast to hear what the captain had to say. He said no more than this: “Yan Bol, and you men: Mr. Van Laar is under arrest in his cabin, and Mr. William Fielding here is and will be the mate of the Black Watch. He is a much better man than Van Laar. You would split your throats with huzzas did you know how very much smarter Mr. Fielding is than Van Laar. We want nothing but sharp and able men aboard the Black Watch. You’ll know why anon—you’ll know why anon. I have my eye upon ye, lads, and so far, I’m very well satisfied. You seem a willing crew; keep so. A man, after he has heard our errand, would sooner have cut his throat than fail me. Heed me well, hearts, for this is to be a big cruise. Here’s your mate, Mr. William Fielding,” and he put his hand upon my shoulder.

The fellows stared very hard. They were strangers to me as yet, and I knew not which were Dutch and which were English; but some exchanged looks with a half-suppressed grin, and those I guessed were English. Yan Bol stood forward—Yan we called him, though he spelt his name with a J. He was, as you have heard, boatswain, carpenter, and sailmaker, a stern, bearded, beetle-browed man, heavily clothed with hair—leonine—indeed, in the matter of hair.

“I beg pardon, captain,” said he, “does Herr Van Laar goom forward?”

“No,” answered the captain, “he goes over the side presently, when there’s a ship to pick him up.”

“I vhas to be second mate still?”

“Yaw, it is so, Yan. We want no better man.”

But the compliment was not relished. Methought Yan Bol, as he fronted the stormy western light, looked sterner and more beetle-browed, hairier, and more bearded than before, when he understood that he was to remain second mate.

“There are three Dutchmen aboard not counting you, Bol,” said the captain, “and seven Englishmen. I want such a distribution of watches, as will put the three Dutchmen under you, Yan. Wirtz, you and Hals will come out of the starboard into the larboard watch, and Meehan and Travers will take their place. That’s all I’ve got to say, excepting this—pipe for grog, Bol, to drink the health of the new mate.”

This dismissed them chuckling. Bol sounded his whistle, and Jimmy presently came out of the cabin and went forward with a can of black rum swinging in his hand.

“I am lumping the Dutchmen together under one head,” said Greaves, as we paced the deck, “to give their characters a chance of developing, before they learn the motive of this voyage. Not that I have more or less faith in Dutchmen than in Englishmen; but sailors of a nationality do not distrust one another, therefore whatever is bad will quickly ripen: but mix them with others and you arrest rapid development by misgiving; and a difficulty, that might come to a head quickly, is delayed until a remedy becomes difficult or impracticable.”

“I understand you, sir.” He smiled on my giving him the sir for the first time. “You want to get at the character of your crew as promptly as may be.”

“That I may clear my forecastle of whatever is doubtful. A cargo of five hundred and fifty thousand dollars makes a rich ship, and a rich ship is a wicked temptation to wicked men. It is a pity we could not manage with fewer hands; but death, sickness, many disabling causes are to be considered; the voyage is a long one—there is the Horn; we could not have done with less men.”

“I wonder what notion of this voyage the men have in their heads,” said I. “I watched them while you talked. I could not see that they made sign by grin, or stare, or look.”

“They would not be sailors if they were not careless of the future,” said Greaves. “What’s for dinner to-day? That’s it, you know. Is there a shot in the locker? Is there a drop of rum in the puncheon? Is there a fiddle aboard? and if the answer be yea, marry, a clear, strong, manly bass voice sings out, ‘All’s well.’ Those men don’t care, because they don’t think. Can’t you hear them talk, Fielding?—‘Where the blazes are we bound to, I wonder?—Hand us that pipe along for a draw and a spit, matey.’—‘I’m for the land o’ shoe-shine arter this job, bullies’—‘Der bork in dis schip vhas goodt,’ says a Dutchman. Then grunt goes another, and snore goes a third, and the rest is snorting. Don’t it run so, Fielding? You know sailors as well as I. But I’ll tell you what; it’ll put gunpowder into the heels of their imaginations, to learn that we’re going to load dollars out of a derelict. They shan’t know yet a bit. Well it is that Van Laar doesn’t know either. Tulp was for having me explain the nature of our errand to him. ‘No, by Isten,’ said I—which I believe is Hungarian—‘no, by Isten,’ I exclaimed, ‘no man shall know what business we’re upon till I have gained some knowledge of the character of the company of fellows who are under me.’”

“All this makes me feel your confidence in me the more flattering, sir,” said I.

“Don’t over sir me. I must replace a guzzling and gorging baboon of a Dutch mate—a worthless mass of unprofessional fat—I must replace this hogshead of lard by a man, and Galloon finds me the man I need lying half-drowned off Ramsgate. I want him very earnestly, very imperatively. I must have a mate—a smart, English seaman. Here he is; but how am I to keep him? He is not going to be detained by vague talk of a voyage whose issue I decline to say anything about, whose motive is mysterious—criminal, for all he is to know—imperiling the professional reputation of those concerned in it, with such a gibbet as that which stands upon the sand hills at the end of it all. No; to keep you I must be candid, or you wouldn’t have stayed.”

“That is true.”

“See to the brig, Fielding. She’s a fine boat, don’t you think? If she didn’t drag so much water—look at that lump of sea on either quarter—she’d be a comet in speed. Why the deuce don’t the shipwrights ease off when they come aft, instead of holding on with the square run of the butter-box to the very lap of the taffrail?”

He looked aloft; he looked around the sea; he walked to the binnacle and watched the motion of the card; he then went below.

It was nearly dark. The red was gone out of the west, but the dying sheen of it seemed to linger in the south and east, whither the shapeless masses of shadow were flying across the pale and windy stars, piling themselves down there with a look of boiling-up, as though the rush of vapor smote the hindmost of the clouds into steam.

Why, thought I, it was but a day or two ago that I, mate of the Royal Brunswicker, was conning that ship, with her head pointing t’other way, in these same waters; and then I was thinking of Uncle Joe, and of some capers ashore, and of the relief of a month or two’s rest from the derned hurl of the restless billow, as the poets call it, with plenty of country to smell and fields to walk in, and a draught of new milk whenever I had a mind. Only a day or two ago—it seems no longer. Insensibility takes no count of time. In fact, whether I knew it or not, I went to sea again on this voyage on the same day on which I arrived in the Downs, after two years of furrin-going. How will it end? I shall become a fish. But six thousand pounds, thought I, to be picked up, invested, safely secured betwixt this and next May, I dare say! Oh, it’s good enough—it’s good enough; and I whistled through my teeth, with a young man’s light heart, as I walked, watching the brig closely, nevertheless, and observing that the fellows at the helm kept her before it, as though her keel was sweeping over metal rails.

CHAPTER X.

WE TRANSHIP VAN LAAR.

“I hope she is coming this way. I hope she is homeward bound, and that she will receive Van Laar.”

We applied our eyes to our quadrants, made eight bells, and, leaving Yan Bol to keep a lookout, went below.

“How am I to foist Van Laar upon a ship’s captain?” said he, as we entered his berth to work out the latitude. “Is he a passenger? Then he must pay. But Van Laar is not a man to pay, and not one doit shall I be willing to pay for him. Is he a distressed mariner whom we have picked up? No. What is he but an inefficient officer, full of mutiny, beef, tobacco, and schnapps? I may find difficulty in persuading a captain to take him. I hope it may not come to it, but I fear I shall be forced to throw him overboard.”

We worked out the latitude and entered the cabin. Galloon sat upon his chair at the table, watching Jimmy lay the cloth for dinner.

“What are you going to give us to eat, Jimmy?” said the captain.

“Oh, I know, master,” replied the lad with his foolish smile; and here I observed that Galloon looked at him. “It’s roast beef to-day, master.”

“There is no fresh beef in the ship; therefore we are not going to have roast beef for dinner. Corned beef it is, not roast beef. Say corned beef, not roast beef.”

The boy, stiffening himself into the posture of a private soldier at sight of his officer, cried in a groaning voice:

“Say corned beef, not roast beef!” and Galloon howled in sympathy.

“Again, if you please.”

“Say corned beef, not roast beef!” bawled the youth; and Galloon’s howl rose high in suffering.

“Once more.”

The boy bellowed, and the dog’s accompaniment made a horrible duet.

Scarcely had the noise ceased when Van Laar opening his door, put his head out, and cried:

“Vhas dere cornedt beef ready?”

“You will give that man ship’s bread for his dinner,” said Greaves calmly. “If he shows his nose again I will have a hammock slung for him in the lazarette—the lazarette or the fore-peak—he may take his choice; but the hatch will be kept on.”

These words had no sooner left the captain’s lips than Van Laar came out of his berth.

“You debrive me of my liberty,” he shouted in his deepest tones, “and I vhas content till ve meets mit a schip to take me out of dis beesly hooker. But, by Cott! mine dinner vhas to be someding more dan schip’s bread, or I vhas sorry for you, Dis is Mynheer Tulp’s schip. I oxpects my full rations. If not, I goes to der law vhen I gets home, and I takes der bedt from oonder you und your vife. A pretty consbiracy—first against mine liberty and now against mine appetite. I have brought my hogs, as you Englishmen say, to a nice market indeedt.”

“Mr. Fielding,” said Captain Greaves quietly, “step on deck, if you please, and send Yan Bol to me with the bilboes. You will keep the deck till Yan Bol returns.”

I hastened up the ladder, and found Yan Bol tramping to and fro. I repeated the captain’s instructions to him.

“Who vhas der bilboes for?” said he, in a voice that trembled upon the ear with the power of its volume.

“Van Laar,” said I.

He looked not in the least surprised.

“For Herr Van Laar. I shall hov to pick out der biggest;” and he went forward to fetch the bilboes, as the irons in which sailors’ legs were imprisoned were in those days termed.

We had considerably risen the sail that I had made out shortly before eight bells, and I took the telescope from the companion way to look at her. She was apparently a small brig, smaller than the Black Watch, visible as yet above the horizon to the line of her bulwark rails only. I found something singular in the trim of her canvas, but she was too far off at present to make sure of in any direction of character, tonnage, or aspect, and I returned the glass to its brackets, satisfied at all events to have discovered that she was heading to cross our hawse, and would be within easy speaking distance anon.

Bol came aft with the bilboes and descended into the cabin, whence very soon afterward there arose through the open skylight a great noise of voices. Van Laar was giving trouble. He declined to sit quietly while Yan Bol fitted him. His deep voice roared out Dutch oaths, intermingled with insults in English leveled at Captain Greaves.

Galloon barked furiously, and Yan Bol’s deeper notes rolled upward like the sound of thunder above the explosions of artillery. Presently I heard a noise of wrestling; then Van Laar called out:

“All right, all right! Let me go! Put her on! I vhas quiet now, but after dis, if I vhas you, I vould hang myself.”

His voice was then muffled, as though he had been dragged or carried into his cabin, and a few minutes later Yan Bol came on deck, lifting his hair with one hand and wiping the sweat from under it with the other.

“He gifs too much trouble,” said he, with a massive shake of his head, “it vhas not right. He vhas a badt sailor, too. I could have told Captain Greaves dot before we sailed from Amsterdam. Van Laar put a ship ashore two years ago. He vhas too fat and lazy for der sea. He vhas ignorant, and has not a sailor’s heart in him.”

“I do not know what sort of a sailor he is,” said I, “but a more insulting son of a swab I never met in my life.”

“Dere’s a ship dot may take him,” said Bol, leveling a hand as big as a shovel at the sea.

“Mr. Bol, please to keep your eye upon her while I am below,” said I; “one needs to be wary in these waters.”

“Let me look at her,” said he, and he fetched the glass. “Dere vhas noting for dis brig to be afraid of in her,” said he, after a slow Dutch gaze and ruminating pause; “it vhas not all right, I belief, but vhat vhas wrong mit her vhas right for us.”

Jimmy passed with the cabin dinner from the galley. A minute later he arrived to report it served. I went below, and was about to sit down when I suddenly exclaimed:

“Hark, what is that?”

“Van Laar singing,” said Greaves.

He took his seat, looking very severely, but on a sudden his face collapsed, and he burst into a fit of laughter.

“Ye Gods, what a voice!” he cried. “He is improvising, and pretty cleverly too. He is asking in Dutch for his dinner, rhyming as he goes along and shouting his fancies to a Dutch air. Yet shall he get no beef, though he should sing till his windpipe splits. I am getting mighty sick of this business. What of the sail?”

“We are rising her fairly fast and she’s heading our way. The wind is taking off and I don’t think we shall be abreast much before another hour.”

Van Laar ceased to sing.

“Is Jimmy an idiot?” said I, when the lad’s back was turned.

“Not at all. He is a very honest lad, with the strength of two mules in his limbs. He has sailed with me before. I have carried him on this voyage because of his foolishness. I did not want too much forecastle intelligence to be dodging about my table.”

“Hark!” said I, “Van Laar is calling.”

“Captain,” roared the voice of the Dutchman, in syllables perfectly distinct, though dulled by the bulkhead which his lungs had to penetrate, “vhas I to hov any dinner? Dis vhas Mynheer Tulp’s ship. I vhas sorry for you if you starf me.”

Jimmy returned.

“When did Mr. Van Laar breakfast?” said Greaves to him.

The youth looked up at the clock in the skylight, and answered instantly:

“At one bell, master,” meaning half-past eight.

“What did he have?”

“A trayful, master,” and I noticed that the boy talked with his eyes fixed on Galloon, while the dog looked up at him as though ready to howl presently.

“But what did he have?”

“He had coffee, mutton chops, sights of biscuits, a tin of preserved pork, more biscuit, master, ay, and fried bacon—twice he sent me to the galley for fried bacon, and he was eating from one bell till hard upon fower.”

“There are no mutton chops on board this ship,” said Greaves, “and as to tins of preserved pork—but you will guess,” said he, looking at me, “that the hog’s trough was liberally brimmed; and still the beast grunts. Listen!”

Van Laar was now singing again. Presently he ceased and talked loudly to himself. He then fell silent; but by this time Greaves and I had dined and we went on deck.

The brig, that had seemingly shifted her course, as though to stand across our hawse, was lying hove-to off the weather bow. There was a color at the peak. I brought the glass to bear and made out the English ensign, union down. She had a very weedy and worn look as she lay rolling and pitching somewhat heavily upon the light swell. Her sails beat the masts with dislocating thumps, and in imagination I could hear the twang of her rigging to the buckling of her spars. She was timber laden; the timber rose above her rails.

“What on earth is she towing?” exclaimed Greaves, looking at her through the glass.

I could not make the object out; something black, resembling a small capsized jolly-boat, rose and fell close astern of her. It jumped with a wet flash, then disappeared past the brow of a swell, jumped again and vanished as though hoisted and sunk by human agency. We ran the ensign aloft and bore slowly down, and when we were within speaking distance hove to.

Presently we made out the queer flashful object astern of the dirty, woe-begone little brig to be nothing more nor less than a large cask, suspended at the end of the trysail gaff; the line was rove through a big block up there and led forward, but into what part of the ship I could not then perceive. Three men were squatted on the timber that was built round about the galley chimney; their hands clasped their knees, they eyed us with their chins on their breasts. The melancholy appeal of the inverted ensign was not a little accentuated by the distressful posture of those three squatting men. A fourth man stood aft. He was clad in a long yellow coat, and wore a red shawl round his neck, and a hat like a Quaker’s. When we were within speaking distance, and silence had followed the operation of bringing the brig to a stand, the man in the yellow coat called in a wild, melancholy voice across the water:

“Brig ahoy!”

“Hallo!”

“Will you send a boat?”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Anan?”

“What is wrong with you?” roared Greaves.

“There’s nothen’ that’s right with us,” was the answer.

“What ship is that?”

“The Commodore Nelson.”

“Where are you from, and where are you bound to?”

“From Quebec to the Clyde.”

“The Clyde!” exclaimed Greaves, looking at me. “Where does he make the Clyde to flow? But he’s homeward bound, and you shall induce him to take Van Laar. Go over to him, Fielding, and see what is wrong;” and he called across the water to the man in the yellow coat, “I will send a boat.”

A boat was lowered; four men and myself entered her. We pulled alongside the wallowing little brig, and I clambered aboard. It was like hearkening to the sound of a swaying cradle. She creaked in every pore, creaked from masthead to jib boom end, from the eyes to the taffrail. She was full of wood and rolled with deadly lunges. The three men continued to sit upon the timber that was piled round about the galley chimney. They turned their eyes upon me when I stepped on board, but seemed incapable of taking more exercise than that.

I made my way over the deck cargo to where the man in the yellow coat was standing, and as I went I observed that the end of the line which was rove through the block attached to the gaff led through another block, secured near one of the pumps and fastened—that is to say, the end of the line was fastened—to the brake or handle of the pump, which was frequently and violently jerked, causing water to gush forth, but intermittently and spasmodically.

“What is wrong with you?” said I, approaching the man who awaited me instead of advancing to receive me, as though he had some particular reason in desiring to converse with me aft.

“Everything is wrong,” he answered, in a patient, melancholy voice. “First of all, will ye tell me what’s to-day?”

“Do you mean the day of the week or the day of the month?”

“Both,” he answered.

Not a little astonished by this question, I supplied him with the information he desired.

“Thought as much,” said he, mildly jerking his fist. “Two days wrong. Yesterday was my birthday and a’ never knew it.”

“Did you say that you are bound to the Clyde?”

“That’s where this cargo’s consigned to,” he answered, “and of course us men go along with it.”

“What are you doing down in these latitudes?”

He gazed round the sea with a lost-my-way expression of eye, and replied:

“I don’t know where we are.”

“The Canary Islands bear about thirty leagues east-southeast,” said I.

He stared at the horizon as though, by looking hard, he would see the Canary Islands.

“Pray, what are you?” said I, looking at him and then glancing at his little ship and the three men who sat disconsolately clasping their knees on top of the deck-load.

“I am the second mate and carpenter.”

“Where’s your captain?”

“Gone blind and mad,” he answered.

“And your mate?”

“Gone dead,” he replied, “it’s been an uncomfortable voyage so far,” he continued, speaking with patient melancholy and with an odd expression of expectation in his eyes. “We left Quebec, and the mate he takes on and dies. He couldn’t help it, poor chap, but t’other——” He gazed at the deck as though to direct my imagination below. “It was drink, drink all around the clock with him; no sharing—a up-in-the-corner job; cuddling a bottle all day long and the blinds drawed. Then he goes mad. That aint enough. Then he goes blind. That aint enough. What must he do but break a leg! And there he lies,” said he, pointing straight down with a forefinger pale as though boiled, like a laundress’s hand. “The navigation was left to me—‘deed, then; it had been left to me for some time—but I never shipped to know navigation. No fear. Me, indeed!” he exclaimed, laughing dully. “I’m a carpenter by trade. However, here I was; so I hove the log and steered east, and here I am!” he exclaimed with another patient, forlorn look around the ocean.

“You have lost your way,” said I. “You are not the first sailor who has lost his way. But have you never sighted anything with a skipper to give you the latitude and the longitude and a true course for the Clyde?”

“Plenty have we sighted, but nothing that would speak us. The only thing that showed a willingness to speak us turned out a privateer, and night drawing down,” he exclaimed, slightly deepening his voice, “saved our throats.”

“That cask astern of you,” said I, “is a novel dodge for keeping your ship pumped out.”

A little life came into his melancholy eye.

“The men took ill,” said he. “Five of them were down, and still are down, and the nursing of ’em all, including of the captain, blind and mad, and the cook unable to stand with dropsy, is beginning to tell upon my spirits.”

“That I can believe.”

“There was but four men left. There sits three of ’em. Who was to do the pumping? The swinging of a yard’s pretty nigh as much as we can manage. I didn’t want to get water-logged: I wish to get home. My wife’ll be wondering what’s become of me. So, after thinking a bit, I rigs up this here pumping apparatus, as ye see, and if the weather holds fine, and the drag of the cask don’t jump the pump out, I think it’ll answer.”

“Well,” said I, “what can we do for you?”

“I should like to be put in the way of getting home, sir,” he answered. “We don’t want for food and water. There aint no purser like sickness,” he exclaimed with a melancholy smile. “When I fell in with your brig I was a-steering east, with the hope of making the land and coming across some village or town where I might larn what the day of the month was, and how to head. It’s one thing not to know what’s o’clock, but I tell ye it makes a man feel weak in the mind to lose reckoning of the day of the week and not know what the date of the month is.”

“What is your name?”

“Tarbrick, sir.”

“Well, Mr. Tarbrick, we shall be able to be of service to you, I believe. We have a Dutchman on board who wants to get home. He and the captain have fallen out, and the Dutchman desires to return by the first passing ship. You may guess that he speaks English, and that he is a navigator, when I tell you he was mate of that vessel. Will you receive him?”

“Will I?” he cried, his face lighting up. “Why, he’s just the man we want.”

“Is there nothing else we can do for you?”

“No, sir; and I never reckoned on getting so much,” he answered mildly and sadly. “I reckoned only on larning the day of the week and the date of the month, and getting the course for a straight steer home.”

“Keep all fast as you are,” said I, “and I will return to you.”

I dropped into the boat and was rowed aboard the brig. Greaves was impatiently walking the deck. He came to that part of the rail over which I climbed, and said:

“Will the brig take Van Laar?”

I answered, “Yes.”

His face instantly cleared. I gave him the story of the Commodore Nelson, as it had been related to me by Mr. Tarbrick, and explained the object of the cask under the stern and the lines rove from it to the pump handle. He laughed, but there was a note of admiration in his laughter.

“That Tarbrick is no fool, spite of his thinking the Clyde lies down this way. I have heard of worse notions than that of making a ship pump herself out. The cask is half full of water, I suppose?”

“It would not be heavy enough for the down-drag unless it were half full of water,” said I.

“And it is guyed to either quarter, of course,” he continued, “otherwise, when the brig moves, it must be towed directly from the gaff-end, which would never do. A clever notion. Bol!”

The boatswain, who was standing forward looking at the brig, immediately came aft.

“Come below with me,” said the captain, “and free Van Laar. That brig will receive him. Keep your boat over the side, Mr. Fielding, and stand by to receive Van Laar and his clothes.”

They entered the cabin. In a few minutes I heard a confused noise of voices. Van Laar’s tones were distinguishable, but I could not collect what he said. Bol came under the skylight and asked me to send down a couple of hands to bring up Van Laar’s chest. Presently Van Laar cried out, “Dis vhas Mynheer Tulp’s schip, and you vhas kicking me out of her.”

“You leave at your own request,” I heard Greaves say.

“Dot vhas valse,” shouted the Dutchman. “But you are a whole ship’s gompany to von man. Yet vill I have der bed from oonder you und your vife.”

“Now step on deck, if you please.”

“Dere law——” but the rest was lost to my ear by the Dutchman getting into the companion way. He emerged, looking very pale, greasy, even fatter than he had before shown; scowled when he met my glance, stared around him with the bewilderment of a newly-released man, and called out, “Vere is der schip?” He saw her as he spoke, shaded his eyes while he looked at her, and, falling back a step, exclaimed, “I vhas not going home in dot schip.”

“That is the ship, and you are going home in her,” said Greaves. “The boat is alongside, and Mr. Fielding waits for you to jump in.”

“You vhas sorry for dis by an’ by. Do you inten’ dot I should drown by your sending me to dot footy hooker? Who has been on boardt her?” he shouted, looking around him with a frown; “you, sir?” cried he to me. “Vot vhos dot oonder her taffrail? I must know vot dot vhas before I stir!”

“It’s nothing that will hurt you,” answered Greaves, who, as I might see, dared not meet my gaze for fear of laughing.

“Vhat vhas it, I ask? I hov a right to know;” and here the poor fat fellow, for whom I was beginning to feel a sort of pity, made spectacles of his thumbs and forefingers, and put them to his eyes to stare at the cask and repeated, “Vhat vhas it? Sir, oblige me by handing me dere glass.”

“Mr. Van Laar,” said Greaves, “I should regret to use force, but if you don’t instantly get into that boat I shall have you lifted over the side and dropped into her.”

“Who vhas it dot has been on boardt? Vhas it you, sir?” cried the Dutchman, again addressing me. “Dos she leak? Vot vhis her cargo? Vot are her stores? I have had no dinner, and you are sending me to a schip dot may be stone proke.”

All this while the crew of the brig, saving those in the boat, had been standing in the fore-part, looking on. I thought to find some signs of sympathy with Van Laar among the Dutch seamen, but if sympathy were felt, it found no expression in their faces or bearing. The grinning had been broad and continuous, but now I caught a murmur or two of impatience that might have signified disgust.

“Will you enter the boat?” cried Greaves. Van Laar began to protest. “Aft here, some of you,” exclaimed Greaves, “and help Mr. Van Laar over the side.”

The Dutchman immediately went to the rail, crawled over it, breathing heavily, then pausing when he was outside, while he still grasped the rim, and while nothing was visible of him but his fat face above the rail, he roared out:

“Down mit dot beastly country, England! Hurrah for der law! Hurrah for der right! Ach, boot I vhas sorry for you by an’ by.”

He then dropped into the boat, I followed, and we shoved off. Galloon barked at the Dutchman as we rowed away. Van Laar talked aloud to himself, constantly wiping his face. His speech was Dutch, and I did not understand what he said. Presently he broke out in English:

“Yaw; a timber cargo. Dot vhas my fear. Dere you vhas, and dot’s to be my home, and vot oonder der sky is dot cask oonder der taffrail? Der schip’s provisions? Very like, very like. She hov a starved look. And who vhas dose dree men sitting up dere? Vhas dot der captain in dere yellow coat? He hov der look of a man who lives on rats. An’ I ask vhat dos a timber schip do down here? By Gott! I do not like the look of her.”

I paid no attention to his words, and put on a frowning face to preserve my gravity, which was severely taxed, not more by Van Laar’s talk and appearance than by the grins of the men who were rowing the boat. We approached the brig, and Mr. Tarbrick came to the main rigging, as though he would have me steer the boat alongside under the main chains.

“Brick, ahoy!” shouted Van Laar, standing up, and setting his thick legs apart to balance himself; for the boat swayed with some liveliness upon the swell that was running.

“Hallo!” responded Tarbrick, with a flourish of his hand.

“Vhat vhas dot cask oonder your shtern?”

“It keeps the pump a-going,” cried Tarbrick.

“Goot anchells!” cried Van Laar, “do I onderstand that you hov not a schip’s gompany strong enough to keep der pumps manned?”

“We are four well men and myself,” shouted Tarbrick; “the rest are sick.”

“I do not go home in dot schip,” said Van Laar, sitting down.

“Oars!” I cried, as we swept alongside. “Mr. Van Laar, I beg you will step on board. Pray give us no trouble. You must go, you know, though it should come to my having to send for fresh hands to whip you aboard,” by which word whip he perfectly well understood me to mean a tackle made fast to the yardarm, used for hoisting. “Mr. Tarbrick, call those three fellows of yours aft to get this chest over the side.”

The three men rose in a lifeless way from the top of the timber, shambled to abreast of the boat in a lifeless way, and in a lifeless way still dragged up Van Laar’s sea-chest, to the grummet handle of which a rope had been attached.

“On deck dere,” called Van Laar, getting up again and planting his legs apart, “how moch do you leak in der hour?”

I winked at Tarbrick, who was leaning over the rail, but the man was either a fool or did not catch my wink, for he answered, in his melancholy voice:

“It’s a-drainin’ in very unpleasantly. I han’t sounded the well since this morning, but,” he added, as though to encourage Van Laar, “we’re full of timber and can’t sink.”

Down sat the Dutchman again, with a weight of fall upon the thwart that made the boat throw a couple of little seas away from her quarters.

“Here I sthop,” he said, doggedly folding his arms.

“You will force me to row back to the brig, obtain fresh hands, and whip you aboard, Mr. Van Laar.”

“You vhas a big,” he said, without looking at me.

“Men,” he exclaimed, addressing the seamen in the boat, “dere Black Vatch belongs to Mynheer Tulp. I vhas mate of her by Mynheer Tulp’s consent. Vill you allow your lawful mate to be put into dis beast of a schip, to starf, to drown, to miserably perish?”

“You had better jump on board,” said one of the men.

“Cast off!” I exclaimed. “I must return to Captain Greaves for further instructions.”

“Shtop!” shouted the Dutchman. “On deck dere, how vhas you off for provisions?”

“Very well off,” answered Tarbrick. “There’s plenty to eat aboard this here brig.”

“And how vhas you off for drink?”

“Come and judge for yourself, sir. There’s been too much drink. It’s been the ruin of us,” exclaimed Tarbrick.

On this Van Laar, putting his hands upon the laniards of the main rigging, got into the chains. We instantly shoved off and were at some lengths from him while he was still heavily clambering on to the deck.

“Blowed if his weight don’t make the little craft heel again,” exclaimed one of the men. “See what a list to larboard she’s took.”

I regained the Black Watch mightily rejoiced that the Dutchman was off my hands. So vast a mass of flesh had made the transferring of it a very formidable undertaking. He was an elephant of a man; it needed but an impassioned gambol or two on his part to capsize a boat three times larger than anything the Black Watch carried. Besides, Van Laar was not the sort of man that one would care to sacrifice one’s life for. As we pulled away I looked over my shoulder, and now the Dutchman had cleared the rail and was wiping his face, with Tarbrick in the act of approaching him. When he saw that I looked he shook his first and roared. His words fell short; his tones alone came along like the low of a cow. My men burst into a laugh, and a minute later we were alongside the Black Watch.

The moment the boat was hoisted we trimmed sail and were presently pushing through the quiet glide of the dark blue swell, and very soon the magic of distance was dealing with the poor little craft in our wake. The afternoon was advanced, the light in the heavens and upon the water was soft and red and still. In the south clouds were terraced upon the horizon, every towering layer of radiant vapor defined with an edging of gilt. There was wind enough to keep the water sparkling wherever the light smote it; our sails soared like breasts of yellow silk breathing without noise to the courtesying of the craft.

A rich ocean afternoon it was, and the beauty of it entered the little vessel which we were leaving astern of us even as a spirit might, vitalizing her with colors and with a radiance not her own, converting her into a gem-like detail for the embellishment of the wide, bare breast of sea. Greaves and I stood looking at her; but the instant I leveled the telescope the enchantment vanished, for then she showed as a crazy old brig once more, a cask in tow of her, her sails ill-set, and the bulky figure of Van Laar striding here and there, with many marks of agitation in his motions.

“The captain mad and blind in the cabin,” said Greaves; “five men sick in the forecastle and the others crushed in spirits, forecastle fare for cabin fare, and bad at that; the water draining into the hold; and the vessel fearfully to the southward of her destination. I do not envy Van Laar.”

However, long before we ran the little vessel out of sight, they had got her head pointed in a direction that was right for the British Channel, if not the Clyde. The breeze had freshened, she was leaning over, and the cask astern had been cut adrift.

CHAPTER XI.

THE “REBECCA.”

Be this as it will. I liked Greaves; I liked his little ship; I liked my position on board of her; and I could find no fault with the crew. The people of my watch ran about without murmurs. Yan Bol seemed to have the whole company well in hand. The spun-yarn winch was often a-going; we were a very clean ship; the complicated machinery aloft was carefully looked to; the long guns were kept bright. I had overhauled the slop-chest and taken what I wanted, and there lay, in a big sea-box which Greaves had somewhere fished out for me, as comfortable a stock of clothes as ever I could wish to sail out of port with.

I did not imagine, however, that the crew would long content themselves with what, while Greaves remained dumb, must be to them no more nor less than an aimless sailing over the breast of the ocean. Sailors do not love to be long at sea without making a voyage. Our crew might look at the compass and note that the course was a straight one for cutting the equator; but what imaginations were they to build up on the letters S.S.W.? We were not a king’s ship. There was no obligation of passivity. The sailors were merchant seamen, claiming all the old traditional rights of their calling; of exercising those rights, at all events, whenever convenient: the rights of grumbling, cursing, laying aft in a body and expostulating, holding forward in a body and turning deaf ears to the boatswain’s music. “Surely,” I would sometimes think, while I paced the deck, eyeing the fellows of my watch at work, “those men will not wait till we are south of the line to hear what the errand of this brig is!”

It came to pass that, a few days after we had got rid of Van Laar, I went on deck at midnight to take charge of the brig until four in the morning. The noble wind of the northeast trade was full in our canvas—a small, fresh, quartering gale—the sky lively with the sliding of stars amid the steam-tinctured heap of the trade-cloud swarming away southwest. Studding-sails were out and the brig hummed through it, shouldering the seas off both bows into snowstorms. The burly figure of Yan Bol stood to windward, abreast of the little skylight. He waited for me to relieve him, and, while he waited, he sang to himself in a deep voice, like the drumming of the wind as it flashed into the hollow of the trysail and fled to leeward in a hollow roar under the boom.

“Is that you, Bol?”

“Yaw, it vhas her himself,” he answered.

“This will do,” said I, stepping up to him.

“Yaw, dis vhas a nice little draught,” he replied.

I made a few quarter-deck inquiries relating to the business of the brig during his charge of the deck since eight o’clock, and was then going aft to look at the binnacle, but stayed on finding that he lingered.

“Do you know,” said he, “I vhas not very gladt to be second mate.”

“Why not?”

“Vell, I believe dot der men vouldt hov more respect for me if I vhas one of demselves.”

“But you are bo’sun, anyway, and your rating, therefore, is higher than that of the others.”

“Dot may be,” he replied, “but a bo’sun in der merchant service vhas no better dan vhat you call in your language a common sailor. He blows a whistle; dot, and a dollar or two more money, and dere you hov der difference.”

“Who else could be second mate?” said I. “As bo’sun of this vessel it would not please you to be ordered about by an able seaman.”

He was silent. It was too dark to see anything of the man save the shapeless lump of shadow which he made against the stars over the sea.

“Mr. Fielding,” said he, “can you tell me vhere dis brig vhas boun’ to?”

“I know where she is bound to,” I answered.

“Ho, you know, sir!” he exclaimed, with a tone of surprise trembling through his deep voice; “Ve all tink dot she vhas der captain’s secret.”

“If you all did think that,” said I, “why do you ask me where the brig is bound to.”

“It vhas about time dot ve knew vhere ve vhas boun’ to,” said Bol. “Dis vhas a larsh verld. Dere vhas many places in him. Some of dose places I have visited and vish never to see again. Derefore I likes to know vhere ve vhas boun’ to.”

“It is for the captain, not for me, to tell you that,” said I.

“Vhen shall he speak?” said Bol.

“In good time, I warrant you.”

“I vhas villing to agree dot vhere we sailed to should be der captain’s secret for a leedle time; but now ve hov been somevhiles at sea, und still she vhas a secret, und I belief dot der men did not suppose dot she vouldt be a secret so long. Dere vhas no cargo. Nothing vhas consigned. Derefore, if ve vhas boun’ anywhere it vhas to a port to call for orders. Und after——”

“The captain will not keep the crew in ignorance much longer,” said I.

“But you can tell us, Mr. Fielding, vhere ve vhas boun’ to?”

“I know where we are bound to.”

“Dot vhas strange! You come on board as a shipwreckt man, vhich vhas quite right; und you take Heer Van Laar’s place, vhich vhas also quite right; and of all der crew, excepting der captain, you alone know vhere der brig vhas boun’ to! Mr. Fielding, oxcuse me, I mean no offense, but I say again dot vhas dom’d strange.”

There was jealousy here which I witnessed, understood, and, to a degree, sympathized with. Here was I, a stranger to the brig—a stranger, I mean, in the sense of not having formed one of her company when she sailed from Amsterdam; here was I, not only installed in the room of Van Laar, and, for all I knew, regarded by the crew as the cause of that man’s expulsion from the ship, but in possession of knowledge withheld from all hands. This might excite a feeling against me among the men, which would be unfortunate. The voyage had opened with so much promise that I had resolved to spare no effort to make a jolly jaunt of it to the uttermost end of the traverse, whether that end was to be called the Downs, or Amsterdam. Preserving my temper, and speaking in the kindliest voice I could command, I said to the big figure alongside of me:

“Yan Bol, I do not wonder you are surprised that I should know what is hidden from you. You are an officer of this ship as well as I.”

“Nine, nine!” he exclaimed in a voice as deep as a trombone.

“But why am I intrusted,” I continued, “with the secret of this voyage a little while before it is communicated to the crew? I will tell you. Captain Greaves wanted a mate in the room of Van Laar. It was not to be supposed that I would accept the offer of the post of mate unless I knew where I was bound to. Therefore, to secure my services, Captain Greaves explained the nature of this expedition. With the others of you it was different. You agreed to sail in this brig, and you were willing, when you agreed to sail, to be kept in ignorance of the brig’s destination. Had I been at Amsterdam when a crew was wanted for the Black Watch, and had I been invited to join her as able seaman, boatswain, chief mate, what you will, I should have answered: ‘Tell me first where you are bound to, for I will not join your ship until I know where she is going and what her business is?’”

“Vell, dot vhas right,” he exclaimed, half smothering a huge yawn. “I hov noting to say against dot. But you hov der ear of your captain. You vhas his countryman: you vhas old friendts, I hov heard. You vill make us men tankful to you if you vill ask him to let us know vhere ve vhas boun’ as conveniently soon as may pe.”

“I will speak to him as you wish,” said I.

He bade me good-night very civilly, and his great shape rolled forward and vanished in the blackness that lay upon the fore part of the brig.

I paced the deck, musing over this conversation. It seemed to me to justify Greaves’ resolution to withhold all knowledge of the ship’s errand from the men until their characters lay somewhat plain to his gaze; but on the other hand, I conceived that it would be a mistake to irritate them by keeping silence too long. They had a right to know where they were going. Then the provocation of silence might lead to murmurs and difficulties, and what would that mean.