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I have known some who have taken that notion into their heads, and have been not a little disappointed when they got afloat, to find that they had to dip their fists into the tar-bucket, to black down the rigging, and swab up the decks, though some of them made not bad sailors after all.
Yes, by the Commodore's boots! they stole me out of my cradle here in the palace of Rio, and put that green-horn in my place. Ay, you timber-head, you, I'm Don Pedro II., and by good rights you ought to be a main-top-man here, with your fist in a tar-bucket!
There was a tar-bucket filled at hand, and this was placed beneath the hatch, covered with all the combustible materials that could be laid hold of, and set on fire.
He is not deemed company at any time for the captain, though the chief mate occasionally is, at least deck-company, though not in the cabin; and besides this, the second mate has to breakfast, lunch, dine, and sup off the leavings of the cabin table, and even the steward, who is accountable to nobody but the captain, sometimes treats him cavalierly; and he has to run aloft when topsails are reefed; and put his hand a good way down into the tar-bucket; and keep the key of the boatswain's locker, and fetch and carry balls of marline and seizing-stuff for the sailors when at work in the rigging; besides doing many other things, which a true-born baronet of any spirit would rather die and give up his title than stand.
After a great struggle I rose at last from the tar-bucket, feeling, if not a brighter, at least a cleaner man. Dawn was already breaking. I looked about me. As the sudden beams of the tropic sun illumined the placid sea, I saw immediately before me, only a hundred yards away, an island. A sandy beach sloped back to a rocky eminence, broken with scrub and jungle.
Besides that some of the number were stationed on every yard in the ship, the mizen-mast from the deck to the truck was entirely managed in the sails and rigging by the midshipmen, who were not such dandies as to despise the tar-bucket, or even volunteering the laborious task of working the oars of one of the boats in harbour.
In vain I told myself that she was a stranger to me: that beyond her longitude I knew nothing of her. In some strange way this girl had seized hold of me and dominated my senses. The night was very calm and still, with great stars in a velvet sky. In the darkness I could hear the water lapping the edge of the raft. I remained thus in deep thought, sinking further and further into the tar-bucket.
It was covered with white canvas drawn tight over hoops which were held by iron clamps to the wagon-sides. At the front opening sat Zene, resting his feet on the tongue. The rear opening was puckered to a round O by a drawing string. Swinging to and fro from the hind axle, hung the tar-bucket. A feed box was fitted across the hind end of the wagon.
Now Sam and Maxime, deeming the incident closed, were walking up the levee road beyond the stock-pens, in the new and more sympathetic company of the two mounted bull-drivers, to whose love of patriotic adventure they had appealed successfully. A few yards beyond a roadside pool backed by willow bushes they set down tar-bucket and pillow, and under a low, vast live-oak bough turned and waited.
They found the life on board the corvette very different to that of the frigate. Their hands were constantly in the tar-bucket and paint-pot. They were for ever employed in knotting and splicing, and in rigging and unrigging a model ship, which had been made on purpose to instruct them.
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