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Updated: May 31, 2025
"God, if there was another ship!" cried Carthew of a sudden. Wicks started and looked aloft with the trick of all seamen, and shuddered as he saw the hanging figure on the royal-yard. "If I went aloft, I'd fall," he said simply. "I'm done up." It was Amalu who volunteered, climbed to the very truck, swept the fading horizon, and announced nothing within sight. "No odds," said Wicks.
"Amalu and Hemstead, count your winnings; Tommy and I pay that." It was carried without speech: the pair glad enough to receive their winnings, it mattered not from whence; and Tommy, who had lost about five hundred pounds, delighted with the compromise. "And how about Mac?" asked Hemstead. "Is he to lose all?" "I beg your pardon, plumber.
They posted Tommy at the fore and Amalu at the main to guard the masts and shrouds, and going themselves into the waist, poured out a box of cartridges on deck and filled the chambers. The poor devils aloft bleated aloud for mercy. But the hour of any mercy was gone by; the cup was brewed and must be drunken to the dregs; since so many had fallen all must fall.
"I'll tell you now it's not worth splitting," broke in Mac. "I've cards in my chest. Why don't you play for the slump sum?" In that idle place, the proposal was accepted with delight. Mac, as the owner of the cards, was given a stake; the sum was played for in five games of cribbage; and when Amalu, the last survivor in the tournament, was beaten by Mac, it was found the dinner hour was past.
Amalu alone berthed forward; the rest occupied staterooms, camped upon the satin divans, and sat down in Grant Sanderson's parquetry smoking-room to meals of junk and potatoes, bad of their kind and often scant in quantity. Hemstead grumbled; Tommy had occasional moments of revolt and increased the ordinary by a few haphazard tins or a bottle of his own brown sherry.
"She's fully big for us three; it would be all the better if we had another hand, though it's a pity too, when you can pick up natives for half nothing. Then we must have a cook. I can fix raw sailor-men, but there's no going to sea with a new-chum cook. I can lay hands on the man we want for that: a Highway boy, an old shipmate of mine, of the name of Amalu.
Ah Wing must have deserted; Amalu stowed away; and I turned him to as cook, and was never at the bother to sign him. Catch the idea? Say your names." And that pale company recited their lesson earnestly. "What were the names of the other two?" he asked. "Him Carthew shot in the companion, and the one I caught in the jaw on the main top-gallant?" "Holdorsen and Wallen," said some one.
"Amalu and Hemstead, count your winnings; Tommy and I pay that." It was carried without speech; the pair glad enough to receive their winnings, it mattered not from whence; and Tommy, who had lost about five hundred pounds, delighted with the compromise. "And how about Mac?" asked Hemstead. "Is he to lose all?" "I beg your pardon, plumber.
To wash decks, relieve the wheel, do the day's work after dinner on the smoking-room table, and take in kites at night, such was the easy routine of their life. In the evening above all, if Tommy had produced some of his civilisation yarns and music were the rule. Amalu had a sweet Hawaiian voice; and Hemstead, a great hand upon the banjo, accompanied his own quavering tenor with effect.
The owner, Norris Carthew, was on board in the somewhat unusual position of mate; the master's name purported to be William Kirkup; the cook was a Hawaiian boy, Joseph Amalu; and there were two hands before the mast, Thomas Hadden and Richard Hemstead, the latter chosen partly because of his humble character, partly because he had an odd-job-man's handiness with tools.
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