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So he had barely time to smoke the cigarette he made of shredded ship's tobacco rolled in a strip of newspaper before he had to go on deck again to holystone the spilled tar from the planks. Dan gave him advice about using a hard stone and plenty of sand, to which he listened, smiling, and then he went up the ladder again, with his rags shivering upon him, to the toil of the afternoon.
For some little time after Bob and Dick got on board, both were very busy, Bob dipping overboard a bucket that had a "becket" of rope for a handle, and a longer rope bent on to this with which he proceeded to haul the bucket up again, full of sea-water, wherewith he sluiced the decks fore and aft thoroughly; while Dick, on his part, scrubbed the planks with a piece of "holystone," then adroitly drying them with a mop, which he could twirl now, after a little experience, with all the dexterity of an old salt!
He was up bright and early the next morning in fact, before any one else, and Bob, hearing some one moving around downstairs, and knowing his father and mother were not in the habit of having such an early breakfast, descended to see who it was. "Good-morning, my lad," greeted the mariner. "I suppose you are going to take the morning watch and holystone the decks.
"No, indeed, I cannot," answered Silas. "I've met with it more than once. It is a very curious phenomenon." "They do say it comes off from the coast of Africa," remarked Ben Yool, who was at the wheel, and from his age privileged to speak on such a matter. "It's full of red sand, and I've seen it covering the decks in some parts as if a man had been scraping a red holystone over them."
"It's a dreadful recollection, and I have that by my mizzen-mast which all the holystone in the world can never scour." "But I've had a mutiny, too!" said the Dutch galliot, with a voice of great importance; and this time the boy felt sure that the vessels nudged one another.
The holystone is a large, soft stone, smooth on the bottom, with long ropes attached to each end, by which the crew keep it sliding fore and aft over the wet sanded decks. Smaller hand-stones, which the sailors call ``prayer-books, are used to scrub in among the crevices and narrow places, where the large holystone will not go.
The after half of her deck was parted off with a light rope rail, was kept as white as holystone could make it, and had a brass railed bulwark. She was steered with a wheel, for more room; the top of the binnacle was made sloping, to serve as a lectern; there were seats all round the bulwarks; and she was called the Clemency.
They passed within hailing distance of the Sloops, and on board the reeling Destroyers here and there a figure in streaming oilskins raised his arm and waved a salutation to the squat grey craft setting forth in the comfortless dawn to holystone Death's doorstep. The Mine-sweepers refrained from any such amenity. Anon the darkness would come again, when no man may sweep for mines.
"Morning, sir, morning," shouted the captain gruffly, and then, turning sharply round, he began to give orders to the crew, which were immediately followed by sounds of holystone upon the already white boards, and splashing of water as buckets came over the side and were hauled up again. "Don't seem as if he's going to ask us aboard," said the American. "No," replied Brace, smiling.
"True for you, sorr," replied Mr McCarthy, stretching out his brawny fist; "and there's my hand on it to say I'll attind to your orders, if it's to holystone the face of that ould cliff there." "All right, my friend!" said Mr Meldrum, shaking the hand outstretched cordially. "I see we understand each other; and, believe me, I'll not be a hard taskmaster."
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