sir," said I slily, with a grin at catching
him tripping. "Why, the stars aren't out yet."
"That may be, Master Impudence," replied Mr Fosset, all genial again
and laughing too; "but they'll soon be popping out overhead."
"But, sir, it is quite light still," I persisted. "See, it is as bright as day all
round, just as at noontide!"
"Aye, but it'll be precious dark soon! It grows dusk in less than a jiffey
after the sun dips in these latitudes at this time o' year," said he. "Hullo!
I say, though, that reminds me, Haldane--"
"Of what, sir?" I asked as he stopped abruptly at this point. "Anything I
can do for you, Mr Fosset?"
"No, my boy, nothing," he replied reflectively, and looking for the
moment to be in as deep a brown study as he accused me of being just
now. "Stop, though, I tell you what you can do. Run forwards and see
what that lazy lubber of a lamp-trimmer is about. He's always half an
hour or so behind time, and seems to get later every day. Wake him up
and make him hoist our masthead lantern and fix the side lights in
position, for it'll soon be dark, I bet 'ee, in spite of all that flare- up aloft
over there, and we're now getting in the track of the homeward-
bounders crossing the Banks, and have to keep a sharp look-out and let
'em know where we are, to avoid any chance of collision."
"Aye, aye, sir," I cried, making my way along the gangway by the side
of the deckhouse towards the fo'c's'le, which was still lit up by the
afterglow as if on fire. "I'll see to it all right, and get our steam lights
rigged up at once, sir."
So saying, in another minute or so, scrambling over a lot of empty coal
sacks and other loose gear that littered the deck, besides getting tripped
up by the tackle of the ash hoist, which I did not see in time from the
glare of the sky coming right in my eyes, I gained the lee side of the
cook's galley at the forward end of the deckhouse. Here, as I
conjectured, I found old Greazer, our lamp-trimmer. This worthy, who
was quite a character in his way, was a superannuated fireman
belonging to the line, whom age and long years of toil had unfitted for
the rougher and more arduous duties of his vocation in the stoke-hold,
and who now, instead of trimming coals in the furnaces below,
trimmed wicks and attended to the lamps about the ship, on deck and
elsewhere. He managed, I may add, to make his face so dirty in the
carrying out of the lighter duties, to which he was now called, probably
in fond recollection of his byegone grimy task in the engine-room, that
his somewhat personal cognomen was very appropriate, his
countenance being oily and smutty to a degree!
He was a very lazy old chap, however; and, in lieu of attending to his
work, was generally to be found confabulating with our mulatto cook,
Accra Prout, as I discovered him now, more bent on worming out an
extra lot of grog from the chef of the galley in exchange for a lump of
"hard" tobacco, than thinking of masthead lanterns or the ship's side
lights, green and red.
"What are you about, lamp-trimmer?" I called out sharply on catching
sight of him palavering there with the mulatto, the artful beggar
furtively slipping the tin pannikin out of which he had been drinking
into the bosom of his jumper. "Here's two bells struck and no lights
up!"
"Two bells, sir?"
"Aye, two bells," I repeated, taking no notice of his affected air of
surprise. "There's the ship's bell right over your head where you stand,
and you must have heard it strike not five minutes ago."
"Lor', Master Dick, may I die a foul death ashore if I ever heard a
stroke," he replied as innocently as you please. "Howsomdever, the
lamps is all right, sir. I ain't 'ave forgot 'em."
"That's all right, then, Greazer," I said, not being too hard on him, and
excusing the sly wink he gave to Prout as he told his barefaced banger
about not hearing the bell, in memory of his past services. "Come along
now and rig them up smart, or you'll have Mr Fosset after you."
Making him hoist our masthead light on the foremast, twenty feet
above the deck, according to the usual Board of Trade regulations for
steamers under way at sea, I then marched him before me along the
deck and saw him place our side lights in their proper position, the
green one to starboard and the red on our port hand.
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