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. It was a mean trick, but then he was a cowardly rogue,
and when I afterwards heard that he had been dismissed from the
service he had formerly entered for robbing his shipmates of money and
tobacco and the humble trifles which sailors carry about with them in
their sea-chests I was wicked enough, recalling how he had walked out
of that deck-house, leaving me, a little boy, alone with a strong,
brutal, crazy third mate, to hope that he might yet prove guilty of
larger sins still, for I could not but regard him as a creature that
deserved to be hanged. The instant this man stepped through the door
the third mate jumped up and closed it. It travelled in grooves, and
he whipped it to with a temper which caused the whole structure to
echo again to the blow.
"Now, you young--" he exclaimed, turning his bulldog face, white with
rage, upon me, yet speaking in a cold voice that was more terrifying
to listen to than if he had roared out, "I have you and I mean to
punish you," and with that he unclasped his heavy belt, and then
clasped it again so as to make a double thong of the leather, and
grasped me by the collar.
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