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All sailormen who have done business on the great sea highway between West and East during recent years have had the yarn given to them at one time or another, and most of them have regarded it as gratuitous legend. Kettle was one of these.
"I'm down 'ere now on special work," he ses, "looking arter sailormen." "Wot ha' they been doing?" ses Sam. "When I say looking arter, I mean protecting 'em," ses the tec. "Over and over agin some pore feller, arter working 'ard for months at sea, comes 'ome with a few pounds in 'is pocket and gets robbed of the lot.
Then the spirits twain made for the cabin at top speed. Several of the crew had rushed down to harken to the strange disturbance. They scattered wildly at the first glimpse of these phantoms, being superstitious sailormen with many a wicked deed to answer for.
The men who go down to the sea in ships, serving and suffering, fighting their endless battle against the caprice of wind and ocean, bring into their own horizons the perils and troubles of their brother sailormen. The 'Southern Sky' was ready on Tuesday morning, and at nine o'clock we steamed out of the bay, while the whistles of the whaling-station sounded a friendly farewell.
"I'd better take care of it," he ses, in a trembling voice. "You might be robbed." "So might you be," ses Mrs. Cook. "Don't you worry; it's in a safe place." "Sailormen are always being robbed," ses George Smith, who 'ad been helping young Bill with 'is sums while they 'ad gone to look at the shop. "There's more sailormen robbed than all the rest put together." "They won't rob Charlie," ses Mrs.
When in far off ages men discuss over vintages ripened in Mars the black superstitions and bloody mindedness of the Georgian savages, still they will have to drain a glass to the memory of the soldiers and sailormen who fought here. 27th April, 1915. Getting on for midnight. H.M.S. "Queen Elizabeth." All sorts of questions and answers.
Now his glance fell on another, smaller item in the newspaper. "In recent vessels from the antipodes have come numerous men from Australia who, according to rumor, are deported English criminals, known as 'Sydney Ducks. It is said that the English government winks at the escape of these birds of ill omen, who are lured hither by tales of our lawlessness carried by sailormen.
It looked wicked to me, this secretive conversation. My excited mind saw evil in it. I smelled evil, tasted evil, the very skin of my body was prickled with the air or evil that lay upon the ship. A case of nerves? Aye, I had nerves. Most sailormen had nerves when they were within sight of Captain Swope.
But at sea I shouldn't like to tell you what I've done; I shouldn't like to tell any one. If a saint has to come down and skipper the brutes we have to ship as sailormen nowadays, he'd wear out his halo flinging it at them.
There was something behind the words. "Small chance of your seeing her finish," I said. "As well found a ship as there is afloat and you may call the Old Man and his buckos what you will, but they are sailormen." "I've heard of ships sinking in storms," says he. "You talk like the stiff you are," I scoffed. "Show me the weather that will drown the Golden Bough, with good sailors aft!
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