The Island Treasure | Page 5

Then came,--
"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!"
CHAPTER TWO.
"A GEN'LEMAN OB COLOUR."
"Thet swab of a Britisher boy," so opprobriously designated by the
first-mate as having been "fetched aboard at Liverpool" by the captain,
as if he were the sweepings of the gutter, was really no less a personage,
if I may be allowed to use that term, than myself, the narrator of the
following strange story.
I happened, as luck would have it, to be standing just at his elbow when
he made the remark, having come up the companion way from the
cabin below the poop by the steward's directions to tell Captain Snaggs
that his dinner was ready; and, as may be imagined, I was mightily

pleased with his complimentary language, although wondering that he
gave me the credit of pulling and hauling with the others in taking in
sail on `all hands' being summoned, when every idler on board ship, as
I had learnt in a previous voyage to New York and back, is supposed to
help the rest of the crew; and so, of course, I lent my little aid too,
doing as much as a boy could, as Mr Jefferson Flinders, the captain's
toady and fellow bully, although he only played second fiddle in that
line when the skipper was on deck, could have seen for himself with
half an eye.
Oh, yes, I heard what he said; and I believe he not only called me a
`swab,' but an `ugly' one as well!
Indeed, I heard everything, pretty nearly everything, that is, and was
able to see most of what occurred from the time when we were off the
Tuskar Light until Captain Snaggs hailed the cook to come aft; for I
was in and out of the cuddy and under the break of the poop all the
while, except now that I went up the companion, and stood by the
booby hatch over it, waiting for the captain to turn round, so that I
could give him the steward's message.
But the skipper wasn't in any hurry to turn round at first, sticking there
grasping the rail tightly, and working himself up into a regular fury
because poor Sam didn't jump out of his galley at the sound of his voice
and answer his summons; when, if he'd reflected, he would have known
that the wind carried away his threatening words to leeward, preventing
them from reaching the negro cook's ears, albeit these were as big and
broad as the bell-mouth of a speaking trumpet.
The captain, though, did not think of this.
Not