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Updated: May 5, 2025
They very soon appeared; and while Nub went to have a look at the mollusc which he and Dan were to have for breakfast, the seaman came and threw himself down at the mate's side with a small branch of tree in his hand, which he was examining attentively. "What is that you have got there?" asked the mate, turning round to him.
He lapsed into silence, and smoked. "I carn't understand 'ow it is ther Second Mate didn't 'appen to spot it," Quoin said, in a puzzled voice. It seemed to me that Plummer nudged him to be quiet. It looked as if Plummer shared the Second Mate's opinion, and the idea made me savage. But Stubbins's next remark drew my attention. "I don't hunderstand it," he said, again; speaking with deliberation.
It occurred to him then, for the first time, that the mate was dead. The men aft, bunched up under the break of the poop, were aware of him as a figure that came sliding and tottering toward them and fell sprawling at the foot of the poop ladder. He floundered up and clutched the nearest of them, the Greek. "The mate's dead," he broke out, in a kind of breathless squeal.
As for George Wetmore, they who had known him in middle age, afterwards declared that Moses did resemble him greatly; while I, myself, could trace in the mouth and milder expression of the mate's features, a strong likeness to the subdued character of his aged mother's face.
"Wot's that?" asked one of the men belonging to the other side. "S sh!" said Stubbins. "It's him." "'oo?" inquired Plummer. "Jacobs?" "Yes," I replied. "Poor devil!" "Wot were 'appenin' w'en yer got hup ther'?" asked the man on the other side, indicating with a jerk of his head, the fore royal. Before I could reply, Stubbins jumped up from his sea-chest. "Ther Second Mate's whistlin'!" he said.
The light now began to wane perceptibly, still Harry's movements could be discerned. The turtle was killed and dressed, sufficiently at least for the mate's purposes, and the latter was seen collecting sea-weed, and bits of plank, boards, and sticks of wood, of which more or less, in drifting past, had lodged upon the rocks.
There was a cry from the foreroyal-yard of "Man overboard!" Somebody threw a life buoy over the side, and at the same instant the second mate's voice came aft, ringing and peremptory: "Hard down your helm!" The man at the wheel never moved a spoke. He knew better, for Captain Dan Cullen was standing alongside of him.
I did not catch the words, but I am quite certain from the fourth mate's manner, that he had heard them, and that he knew what was in the other's mind. I say this because I recollect that very shortly afterwards the fellow rose and walked out on deck with an air about him as if he was willing to give the third mate a chance of being alone with me.
"Many's the time I've been out to Spithead in this here wherry when it's been blowing great guns and small arms, and she's ridden over the seas like a duck. The gentleman needn't be afraid." The doctor, who did not seem to like the mate's joking, or father's remark about being afraid, sat silent for some time.
I, being in the starboard or second mate's watch, had the opportunity of keeping the first watch at sea. Stimson, a young man making, like myself, his first voyage, was in the same watch, and as he was the son of a professional man, and had been in a merchant's counting-room in Boston, we found that we had some acquaintances and topics in common.
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