Sail Ho! | Page 5

little floating world-- the captain; but he had gone ashore to see the owners again, so my new friend told me, and would come aboard again at Gravesend. But I had a good view of the crew, and was not favourably impressed, for they appeared to be a very rough lot. A great many of them had been drinking, and showed it; others looked sour and low-spirited; and there was a shabby, untidy aspect about them, which was not at all what I had expected to see in the smart crew of a clipper ship, while my surprise was greater still when I saw that four of the men evidently hailed from China, and as many more were the yellow, duck-eyed, peculiar-looking people commonly spoken of on board ship as Lascars.
The mates were so busy and hot, trying to get the decks cleared, and succeeding very slowly with the unpromising material at their command, that we saw very little of them, and I looked eagerly round to see what our passengers were like; but there were so many people on board that it was hard to pick out who was for the other side of the world and who was to stay on this.
The time passed, and I ate as good a dinner as my companion that evening, the first mate taking the head of the table; and that night, when all the visitors had said good-bye, and were gone ashore, and I had retired to my bunk, it seemed as if I had been on board for days. I lay there longing to throw shoes or brushes at Walters, who was lying on his back just under me, and breathing so exceedingly hard, that it was as if he kept on saying Snork in a nasty spiteful manner on purpose to keep me awake. And it did keep me awake for some time. At last I dropped asleep for about a minute, as it seemed to me, and then started up and knocked my head against the woodwork.
"Only cold water, lad," said a voice. "I say, you, been to sea, and not know how to tumble out of your berth without knocking your pumpkin."
I was confused for the moment by my intense sleepiness, and the blow I had given my head, so that I could hardly make out where I was. Then as I awoke to the fact that my brother middy was half-dressed, and that he had been holding his dripping sponge to my face, I crawled out, or rather lowered my legs down, and began to dress.
"Look sharp," said my companion; "don't stop to shave."
CHAPTER THREE.
"Well, youngsters!" saluted us as soon as we stepped on deck, and the bluff, brown-faced captain gave me a searching look. "Ready for work?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's right. Well, I don't want you yet. Run about the ship, and keep out of my way. That'll do for the present. Be off!"
He was rather rough, but it was in a good-tempered fashion, and I felt as if I should like the captain in spite of a whisper from Walters which sounded like "boor."
Then feeling free for the day, I upset my new friend and patron by going amongst the men and passengers as they came on deck.
"Here, don't you be so fast," said Walters, as I was hurrying from place to place asking questions of the sailors, and finding interest in everything on board, where, though bearing a certain similarity, all was so different to the arrangements upon a yacht.
"Fast!" I said, wonderingly.
"Yes," said Walters, shortly. "You'll be getting into trouble. You'd better, now you're so new, let me lead, and I'll tell you all that you want to know."
"Mind your eyes, youngsters," sang out a good-looking, youngish man, "Now, my lads, right under, and lash it fast."
"Second mate," whispered Walters to me, as about a dozen men dragged a great spar, evidently an extra top-mast, close under the bulwarks, to secure it tight out of the way.
"Quite right, youngster," said the officer, who seemed to have exceedingly sharp ears, and then he gave me a nod.
"Hang him and his youngsters," grumbled Walters as we went forward. "He has no business to speak like that before the men."
"Oh, what does it matter?" I said. "Look there, at that thin gentleman and the young lady who came on board yesterday evening. He must be ill. Oh! mind," I cried, and I sprang forward just in time to catch the gentleman's arm, for as he came out of the cabin entrance, looking very pale, and leaning upon the arm of the lady, he caught his foot in a rope being drawn along the deck, and in spite of the lady clinging to him he would have fallen if I had not run up.
"Don't!" he cried angrily, turning