FullReads

As eight bells sounded, Captain Bacon and Mr. Knapp came up from breakfast, and Mr. Hansen, the squat and square-built second mate, immediately went down. The deck was still wet from the morning washing down, and forward the watch below were emerging from the forecastle to relieve the other half, who were coiling loosely over the top of the forward house a heavy, wet hawser used in towing out the evening before. They were doing it properly, and as no present supervision was necessary, the first mate remained on the poop for a few moments’ further conversation with the captain.

“Poor crew, cap’n,” he said, as, picking his teeth with the end of a match, he scanned the men forward. “It’ll take me a month to lick ’em into shape.”

To judge by his physique, a month was a generous limit for such an operation. He was a giant, with a giant’s fist and foot; red-haired and bearded, and of sinister countenance. But he was no more formidable in appearance than his captain, who was equally big, but smooth-shaven, and showing the square jaw and beetling brows of a born fighter.

“Are the two drunks awake yet?” asked the latter.

“Not at four o’clock, sir,” answered the mate. “Mr. Hansen couldn’t get ’em out. I’ll soon turn ’em to.”

As he spoke, two men appeared from around the corner of the forward house, and came aft. They were young men, between twenty-five and thirty, with intelligent, sun-burnt faces. One was slight of figure, with the refinement of thought and study in his features; the other, heavier of mold and muscular, though equally quick in his movements, had that in his dark eyes which said plainly that he was wont to supplement the work of his hands with the work of his brain. Both were dressed in the tar-stained and grimy rags of the merchant sailor at sea; and they walked the wet and unsteady deck with no absence of “sea-legs,” climbed the poop steps to leeward, as was proper, and approached the captain and first mate at the weather rail. The heavier man touched his cap, but the other merely inclined his head, and smiling frankly and fearlessly from one face to the other, said, in a pleasant, evenly modulated voice:

“Good morning. I presume that one of you is the captain.”

“I’m the captain. What do you want?” was the gruff response.

“Captain, I believe that the etiquette of the merchant service requires that when a man is shanghaied on board an outward-bound ship he remains silent, does what is told him cheerfully, and submits to fate until the passage ends; but we cannot bring ourselves to do so. We were struck down in a dark spot last night,–sandbagged, I should say,–and we do not know what happened afterward, though we must have been kept unconscious with chloroform or some such drug. We wakened this morning in your forecastle, dressed in these clothes, and robbed of everything we had with us.”

“Where were you slugged?”

“In Cherry Street. The bridge cars were not running, so we crossed from Brooklyn by the Catherine Ferry, and foolishly took a short cut to the elevated station.”

“Well, what of it?”

“What–why–why, captain, that you will kindly put us aboard the first inbound craft we meet.”

“Not much I won’t,” answered the captain, decidedly. “You belong to my crew. I paid for twenty men; and you two and two others skipped at the dock. I had to wait all day in the Horseshoe. You two were caught dead drunk last night, and came down with the tug. That’s what the runners said, and that’s all I know about it. Go forrard.”

“Do you mean, captain—-“

“Go forrard where you belong. Mr. Knapp, set these men to work.”

Captain Bacon turned his back on them, and walked away.

“Get off the poop,” snarled the mate. “Forrard wi’ you both!”

“Captain, I advise you to reconsider—-“