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Trunnell was quite content to leave him alone. At five in the morning the boarding master brought down the men, and a sorry lot of sailors they were. They counted nineteen all told, and half of them could not speak English.
He saw in an instant how the case was, and his glinting eyes took in the whole outfit of men and mates at one glance. He may not have wished to help the strangers, but he saw that not to do so meant more trouble to himself than if he did. "This time you expected just right, Trunnell.
As she drew nearer still, we could see Trunnell standing on the weather side of the poop, holding to a backstay and gazing aloft at his canvas, evidently giving orders for the watch to bear a hand and lay aft to the braces. He would lay his mainyards aback and heave her to. Along the high topgallant rail could be seen faces, and on the quarter-deck Mrs.
"I didn't tell him," he added under his breath, "that you had said you'd mutiny afore I left, or he would probably have done for both you and Chips. He doesn't even know now that Chips was with you, so get into your room and pipe down." I was so dazed at Trunnell coming back alone I could hardly talk. I looked again over the side to see if there was no mistake.
"Get off a good joke?" echoed the skipper. "Well, that's what I call hard. A good joke? Why, my dear child, I've gotten off the joke of my life to-day. Sink me, if I ain't played the best joke of the year, and on Trunnell too, at that. A good joke? ha, ha, hah!" and he threw his head back and laughed so loud and long that his mirth was infectious, and I even found myself smiling at him.
"I didn't take no stock o' those fellers bein' aboard a ship what had been afire, so when ye went into stays an' swore to do bloody murder an' suddin death to them fellers, I didn't let on to the old man. What's the use? says I. We ain't a-goin' to bring them back noways." "Weren't they aboard?" I asked. Trunnell gave me a long, keen look. "Be ye tellin' o' this yarn, Rolling, or me?" he said.
"I beg pardon, sir," said Bill, taking a fresh grip upon the spokes with his great hands. "That's right, my son; you're a beggar aboard this here boat. Don't aspire to anything else." "Aye, aye, sir," said the quartermaster. "And now that you've got to your bearings, as Trunnell would say, I'll tell you a little story about a man who lost a pet dog called Willie."
But Trunnell cut me short. "No, Mr. Rolling, there ain't no use disguising the fact any more, this skipper don't know nothin' about a ship. You'll find that out before we get to the west'ard o' the Agullas. Mind ye, I ain't making no criticism o' the old man.
Some day we'll meet agin, fer I'm stuck on the sea and am going to buy a boat and appoint ye as captain, only yer must cut yer hair and trim up yer beard some. That's all." Trunnell held the dollar bill he had unfurled from the note in his hand and dropped the note back into the trunk. "'Tis screwed fast wid nine big bolts to th' deck," said Chips, who had examined the outfit carefully.
The men were mustered aft, and Trunnell announced that he was the man they wanted to stand from under. They remained silent until Johnson suggested that three cheers be given for the new skipper. Then all hands bawled themselves hoarse. That was all. I was now the first mate and took my meals at the cabin table, where Jennie and her mother had been wondering at Trunnell's dexterity with his knife.
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