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“There,” said Captain Benson to his guests on the poop; “see that little devil! See him show his teeth! That is Mr. Sinful Peck. I’ve had him in irons with a broken head five times, and the log is full of him. I towed him over the stern running down the trades to take the cussedness out of him, and if he had not been born for higher things, he’d have drowned. He was absolutely unconquerable until I found him telling his beads one time in irons and took them away from him. Now to get an occasional chance at them he is fairly quiet.”

“So this is your trained crew, is it, captain?” said a grizzled old skipper of the party. “What ails that fellow down in the scuppers with a prayer-book?” He pointed to a man who with one hand was rubbing a small holystone in a corner where a large one would not go.

“Ran foul of the big end of a handspike,” answered Captain Benson, quietly; “he’ll carry his arm in splints all the way home, I think. His name is Gunner Meagher. I don’t know how they got their names, but they signed them and will answer to them. They are unique. Look at that outlaw down there by the bitts. That is Poop-deck Cahill. Looks like a prize-fighter, doesn’t he? But the steward tells me that he was educated for the priesthood, and fell by the wayside. That one close to the hatch–the one with the red head and hang-dog jib–is Seldom Helward. He was shot off the cro’-jack yard; he fell into the lee clew of the cro’-jack, so we pulled him in.”

“What did he do, captain?” asked the grizzled skipper.

“Threw a marlinespike at the mate.”

“What made him throw it?”

“Never asked. I suppose he objected to something said to him.”

“Ought to ha’ killed him on the yard. Are they all of a kind?”

“Every man. Not one knew the ropes or his place when he shipped. They’re schooner sailors from the Lakes, where the captain, if he is civil and respectful to his men, is as good as any of them. They started to clean us up the first day, but failed, and I went to sea with them. Since then, until lately, it has been war to the knife. I’ve set more bones, mended more heads, and plugged more shot-holes on this passage than ever before, and my officers have grown perceptibly thinner; but little by little, man by man, we’ve broken them in. Still, I admit, it was a job. Why, that same Seldom Helward I ironed and ran up on the fall of a main-buntline. We were rolling before a stiff breeze and sea, and he would swing six feet over each rail and bat against the mast in transit; but the dog stood it eight hours before he stopped cursing us. Then he was unconscious. When he came to in the forecastle, he was ready to begin again; but they stopped him. They’re keeping a log, I learn, and are going to law. Every time a man gets thumped they enter the tragedy, and all sign their names.”

Captain Benson smiled dignifiedly in answer to the outburst of laughter evoked by this, and the men below lifted their haggard, hopeless faces an instant, and looked at the party with eyes that were furtive–cat-like. The grinding of the stones prevented their hearing the talk, but they knew that they were being laughed at.

“Never knew a sailor yet,” wheezed a portly and asthmatic captain, “who wasn’t ready to sue the devil and try the court in hell when he’s at sea. Trouble is, they never get past the first saloon.”

“They got a little law here,” resumed Captain Benson, quietly. “I put them all in the guardo. The consul advised it, and committed them for fear they might desert when we lay at the dock. When I took them out to run to the islands, they complained of being starved; and to tell the truth, they didn’t throw their next meal overboard as usual. Nevertheless, a good four weeks’ board-bill comes out of their wages. I don’t think they’ll have a big pay-day in New York: the natives cleaned out the forecastle in their absence, and they’ll have to draw heavily on my slop-chest.”