Part 11 (2/2)

”And that is what we have not the slightest inclination for,” said the American--who, it now appeared, was boatswain on board--in a dry tone of authority. ”We are not going larking with the police. Besides, having once recovered that trifle of wages, I don't mean to risk losing it again.”

The Yankees made a close ring round their prisoner, and there was nothing for it but to follow as he was directed. A look, however, at the boatswain gave him to understand that that question of the wages would be settled between them when they got on board.

CHAPTER XVI.

The Stars and Stripes lay in the roads with the Union flag at her gaff.

She was a long, black, and, at the water-line, well-shaped vessel, with a crew of thirty-two men; and Salve was so taken with her appearance that as they came alongside he silently congratulated himself on his luck in getting a berth in her. They were so obliging, moreover, as to give him a berth to himself in a separate cabin below. But, to his intense indignation, no sooner had he entered it than the door was latched on the outside, and when he tried to kick it open, it was signified to him that during the short time they had still to be at Rio, he was to remain in confinement, that they might be sure of him. The heat was intolerable down there; and to add to that, there was incessant crying and groaning going on in the hold beside him, as if it were full of sick people. It was the vilest treatment he had ever been subjected to.

The work of taking in the cargo went on uninterruptedly the whole night, as if they were in a particular hurry to get out of the harbour, and about noon the anchor was weighed while the contents of the last lighter were being taken on board.

When Salve, some hours after, was set at liberty, they were already out in the open sea off the mouth of the channel. The captain, the three mates, and several of the inferiors in command, when on deck, wore gold-laced caps and a kind of uniform, as on a man-of-war, and the officer of the watch was armed. The crew, on the other hand, were almost to a man shabby, and they seemed to consist of men of every nationality--English, Irish, Germans, and Americans, not to mention half a dozen negroes and mulattoes. As no one took any notice of him, he went about as he pleased for a while; and presently saw, with a disagreeable sensation, no less than three corpses carelessly sewed up in sail-cloth dropped over the side of the s.h.i.+p that was turned from the land, without the slightest ceremony. The uncomfortable feeling which this incident had aroused was anything but allayed when he heard presently from a little pale cabin-boy with whom he had entered into conversation that it had been successfully concealed from the harbour authorities that there was yellow fever on board; that there were many more lying sick below; and that one of those who had just been heaved overboard, had died the day before in the very berth in which Salve had slept that night.

In the evening he was called aft to the captain, who was standing with the boatswain at his elbow. He was a spare, energetic-looking man, of about forty years of age, with thick black whiskers, marked features, and rather hollow cheeks, and with carefully dressed, glossy hair. He was smoking a handsome pipe with a long stem inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and took a sip from time to time from a cup of black coffee that was standing on the skylight.

”What is your name?” he asked, nodding in reply to Salve's salute.

”Salve.”

”Salve,” repeated the captain, with an English p.r.o.nunciation of the name; ”and Norwegian?”

”He looks too respectable for the pack he'll have to herd with,” he muttered to the boatswain.

”Able seaman?”

”Yes.”

”You have had three guineas on account?” he went on, after a couple of puffs to keep his pipe alight, as he looked into his ledger; ”a month's wages.”

”No, sir,” said Salve, firmly, ”I have had nothing on account,”--and he proceeded then to relate the circ.u.mstances under which the supposed payment had been made. ”I have not been regularly engaged till this moment, if I am so now; but up to this I have been treated like a dog, and worse.”

The captain took no notice of his last observation, and merely said shortly and sternly--

”The three guineas are owing to him, boatswain Jenkins. His place will be in the foretop. A steady hand will be wanted among all that rabble there.”

”Another time you'll perhaps play on your own account, and not on the sailors',” he observed, turning to the boatswain; but Salve caught the remark.

With this the conference came to an end, the boatswain's expression prophesying that when the opportunity offered Salve should pay for his triumph. He went about nursing his prominent chin, and twisting his yellow whiskers, and found a victim for the present in a wretched Mulatto, who was scouring for the cook. After first correcting him sharply for nothing, he coolly felled him to the deck with a handspike, and left him lying there unable to move.

Salve's blood boiled at the sight; but his indignation gave way presently to astonishment when he saw the poor fellow get up and go on indefatigably with his work, after first quietly wiping his own blood off the saucepan. There was a limit to brutality, he thought, and in his disgust he almost envied him the blow he had received.

He provided himself now from the purser with a suit of seaman's clothes in lieu of the rather damaged cloth ones which he wore; and the sailmaker gave him out hammock clothes, to be paid for out of his wages.

He proceeded then to hang his hammock from one of the beams between decks; and while he was doing so observed another man in a canvas suit like his own, similarly occupied, not far from him. He couldn't be mistaken--it was Federigo.

The latter had, as Salve afterwards heard, been taken by the police during the affair in the tavern. He had seen how Salve had been rescued by the boatswain of the Stars and Stripes; and having managed to escape from his captors on the way to the guard-house, he had sought a similar refuge.

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