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The next day, I kept a pretty close watch, during all my time on deck; but the atmosphere remained clear. Yet, I heard from one of the chaps in the Mate's watch, that it had been hazy during part of the time he was at the wheel. "Comin' an' goin', like," he described it to me, when I questioned him about it. He thought it might be heat. But though I knew otherwise, I did not contradict him.
Upon the mate's assuring him, however, that it was all over, he looked up, quite flustered, if not frightened, but evidently determined to put as fierce a face on the matter as practicable. Speaking sharply, he warned all present to "look out"; and then repeated the question, whether there was enough to eat aboard.
"Somebody call the captain; the mate's dead." There was a moment of silence; then a cackle of words from several of them together. The Greek's hands on his shoulders tightened. He heard the man's purring voice in his ear. "How did you do it?" Conroy thrust himself loose; the skies of his mind were split by a frightful lightning flash of understanding.
Four or five more shots were fired, but they all fell astern; and as they were fully two miles and a half away when the last gun was discharged, and the cannoneers must have known that they were far out of range, Captain Martin felt sure that the mate's idea was a correct one, and that the cannon had been discharged rather as a signal than with any hope of reaching them.
I found that he had written to the captain, who had reserved a berth for him, but it was still before the mast. He had the promise, he told me, of a mate's berth should a vacancy occur; but he observed, "I am not ambitious. With what I have I am content." He asked no questions as to what I had been doing. It was not his way.
"Aisy, Tom, aisy, ye're out of it entirely. It's the Humane Society's gold medal we'll all be getting for saving firewood." "Stow your jaw, Pat, that's not wreck, it's " At this moment the third mate's voice rang through the ship "A boat bottom up!"
My hiss brought a prompt response, but not the one for which I was looking. I stared after him, undecided what to do. The man looked like Newman, but he did not act like him. I had half a mind to pursue his flitting figure. Then all at once I discovered I must take cover myself. I heard the mate's voice, up on the poop; he was hailing his tradesmen. "We'll take a whirl for'ard," says he.
He walks about his ship like a ghost. He's fading away right before our eyes. But of course you don't see. You don't care a hang. Why should you?" Mr Powell did not wait for more. He went down on the main deck. Without taking the mate's jeremiads seriously he put them beside the words of Mr Smith. He had grown already attached to Captain Anthony.
But though he paused but momentarily, it was fatal, for the instant the mate's back was turned the first man, with an oath of drunken defiance, cast off the fall and let it go with a run, just as the Motutapu was heaved up by a lofty sea, and rolled heavily to port.
Captain Billings' inspection proved that the mate's fears were but too well-founded; so he immediately had the pumps rigged by the watch on duty "all hands" not being called yet, as the vessel was lying-to, and there was not much work to be done.
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