United States or Montenegro ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I, who had by this time quietly resumed my station; was ordered down along with them; and we all four stood on the quarter-deck, while the following interrogations were put to us: "Now, sir," said the first lieutenant to the captain of the top, "how dare you tell me that that young gentleman was at the mast-head, when I myself saw him `shining' up by the topsail-tie?"
The Captain, on seeing him, beckoned him to approach. "I understand," he said, "that you have served long at sea, and I shall be glad, as I doubt not you will prove yourself worthy of it, to place you on the quarter-deck. Your men, I understand, have entered as of the people you were carrying out as passengers.
He looked round at me too, and they went up together so quickly then that when I got on the quarter-deck I was only in time to see the inner door of the passage close after them. Queer eh? But if it were only queerness one wouldn't mind. Some luggage in new trunks came on board in the afternoon. We undocked at midnight. And may I be hanged if I know who or what he was or is.
However, the men considered him more of a troublesome officer than a good one; and, from a habit he had of moving his fingers about when walking the quarter-deck, the men said he was an organ-player from London: but I have no reason to know this was the case. The captain's name was Waghorn.
Some of the men grumbled at this, and complained of it to each other, but they never spoke so as to let the captain hear, and they soon gave up their grumbling, for the most of us were well pleased with the change, and all of us had agreed to it. The first Sunday after Fred's death, the captain assembled the crew on the quarter-deck, and spoke to us about it.
Two hours had scarcely elapsed since the last passenger crossed the gangway, and yet the respective circles of the quarter-deck and steerage felt more sympathy with each other than the boasted human charities ordinarily quicken in days of common-place intercourse.
Two men slowly paced the brig's quarter-deck for some time in silence, as if the elemental quietude which prevailed above and below had infected them. Both men were broad, and apparently strong. One of them was tall; the other short. More than this the feeble light of the binnacle-lamp failed to reveal.
I know that I kept pacing up and down on the weather side of the quarter-deck with great dignity, looking up at the sails, and every now and then giving a glance at the compass, to assure myself that the man at the helm was steering a proper course. I should like to know what officer in the service, under the circumstances, could do more.
In spite, however, of this mutual understanding, two of them violated their faith the night before we went to sea, and left the boat of which I had charge; and as I had disobeyed orders in letting them go to a public-house, I was, on my return to the ship, dismissed from the quarter-deck, and ordered to do my duty in the fore-top.
Even the natives in the tank, swiftly passing the cable from hand to hand, were singing in barbaric monotone to themselves, while we idle ones on the quarter-deck read a marvellous tale of love and bloodshed to the monotonous accompaniment of the cable shuffling through the wooden troughs beside us.
Word Of The Day