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"No, no," groaned the unfortunate man. "I dare not." "Then I shall have to make you," roared the boatswain. "Heave ahead there!"
To my parched throat the air seemed a little less trying; but it is now seven days since the boatswain took his haul of fish, and during that period we had eaten nothing; even Andre Letourneur finished yesterday, the last morsel of the biscuit which his sorrowful and self-denying father had in- trusted to my charge.
A warrant boatswain, gunner, or machinist of four years' standing and still under thirty-five years of age may take an examination for ensign. Twelve warrant-officers may be made ensigns annually. If they pass, they thereafter go on up exactly as any Annapolis graduate. A warrant pay-clerk may go up to be junior paymaster, where he will rank with an ensign.
All the time Keawe was ill at ease, because he was taking this pastime while his wife was sad, and because he knew in his heart that she was more right than he; and the knowledge made him drink the deeper. Now there was an old brutal Haole drinking with him, one that had been a boatswain of a whaler, a runaway, a digger in gold mines, a convict in prisons.
Raymond, whose tongue and lips were parched with thirst, became desperate again, and attempted to force his way into the kitchen. He was seized by the boatswain, and the more he struggled, the more he was shaken up. He refused to behave himself, and Peaks thrust him into the brig. The gale continued to blow ugly and gusty during the day, until eight bells in the afternoon.
“I must congratulate you,” he said, “as well as myself, on this haul. I should say it would make you the richest midshipman in the service. My share, as you know, is an eighth. You, as officer in command, and altogether independent of the fleet, will get one quarter. Mr. Harman’s share will be an eighth, and the rest will be divided among the crew, the boatswain getting four shares.”
They went below together. “Dimchurch,” the boatswain said to a tall sailor-like man, “these boys have just joined. I wish you would keep an eye on them, and prevent anyone from bullying them.
The boatswain was as obnoxious to the men as Vigors, and in consequence of Jack's known opinions upon the rights of man, and his having floored their two greatest enemies, he became a great favourite with the seamen, and, as all favourites are honoured by them with a sobriquet, our hero obtained that of Equality Jack.
It was indeed Fuller whom they had beheld, but not labouring, as the boatswain had imagined, under the mere influence of superstitious fear. He was dead, and the blood flowing from a deep wound, inflicted by a sharp instrument in his chest, and the scalped head, too plainly told the manner of his death, and the danger that awaited them all. A pause ensued, but it was short.
"Oh! Burton, Burton! Where are you? Has no one seen my husband? Can anyone tell me of my husband? Where is he? Where is he?" she frantically exclaimed, running from one to the other, when she found that he was not among those brought on board. "The boatswain!" said some one. "Bless her poor heart, I don't like to utter it, but I saw him knocked overboard as he was climbing up the polacca's side.
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