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"Well, do you see, Bill, most of us are new on board here, though we have knocked about long enough to get the number of our mess and to work ship together, and don't perhaps feel so well satisfied as you do." "Why, look ye, messmates, arnt you satisfied so long as the articles you signed are kept by captain and crew?" asked Bill Marline, somewhat tartly.
"What's your name, mate?" asked my new friend, as he was sipping his glass of grog. I told him. "Mine's Richard Sharpe; but I'm mostly called Dicky Sharpe," he answered. "Some of my messmates give me all sorts of names; but I don't mind them. As long as they don't cob me, it's all very well. I'm a happy fellow, and ready for all the ups and downs of life.
We must not forget that the time is not so far distant when all these tyrants disposed absolutely of the life and death and body and soul of their subjects. Who knows, too, what my husband But perhaps you are right. It may only be a foolish suspicion that has upset me; and it is just for this reason that I did not wish to speak about it to any of my husband's messmates.
We have not mentioned him until now, because up to this time he had not done anything to distinguish himself beyond his messmates; but on this particular day O'Riley's star was in the ascendant, and fortune seemed to have singled him out as an object of her special attention. He was a short man, and a broad man, and a particularly rugged man so to speak. He was all angles and corners.
Perhaps you may think I am comfortable in her through idleness and not having much duty put upon me; but I am one of the three Mids in the ship and the duty is heavy, there being only one Mid in each watch, and he has the duty of Mate of the watch, there being none; but I like my messmates, and we have a capital berth.
Some days afterward, in the mess-room at the fort, being elevated by wine, he boasted among his messmates of the intimate terms of friendly acquaintance upon which he falsely asserted that he had the pleasure of standing with 'Warfield's pretty little favorite, as he insolently called me. When my husband heard of this I learned for the first time the terrific violence of his temper.
It fared ill with Tim Rokens that evening that he had rashly entered into ladies' society, for he was a nervous man in refined company, though cool and firm as a grounded iceberg when in the society of his messmates, or when towing with the speed of a steamboat in the wake of a sperm-whale. Egg Number 5 proved to be a bad one.
Of course, I said nothing about Tom Hansard, and they pretended that they could not make out how I had got loose. I found out, however, that the whole plan was arranged beforehand by Dicky Snookes and my other messmates with the captain of the top, just to see what I was made of, and what I would do, it being understood that he was to keep whatever he could get out of me.
Any attempt to help them was utterly hopeless; we heard their despairing shrieks, and for an instant saw their agonised countenances as the ship swept by them, and all trace of them was lost. We hurried on to the main-topsail-yard just in time to save the people there from sharing the fate of their messmates.
It was not exactly a laughing matter to me, although I had to congratulate myself upon a very lucky escape; and so did my messmates think, when I narrated my adventures. The pelican was the worst part of the business.
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