'Fit for a duchess, s'help me!' cried the captain. 'Look to this one, Jem. He is a lusty rogue. Look to his great hands. He might work for years in the rice-swamps ere the land crabs have the picking of him.'
'Aye, we'll have smart bidding amid the settlers for this lot. 'Cod, captain, but you have made a bargain of it! Od's bud! you have done these London fools to some purpose.'
'What is this?' roared the captain. 'Here is one who hath not touched his allowance. How now, sirrah, art too dainty in the stomach to eat what your betters have eaten before you?'
'I have no hairt for food, zur,' the prisoner answered.
'What, you must have your whims and fancies! You must pick and you must choose! I tell you, sirrah, that you are mine, body and soul! Twelve good pieces I paid for you, and now, forsooth, I am to be told that you will not eat! Turn to it at this instant, you saucy rogue, or I shall have you triced to the triangles!'
'Here is another,' said the mate, 'who sits ever with his head sunk upon his breast without spirit or life.'
'Mutinous, obstinate dog!' cried the captain. 'What ails you then? Why have you a face like an underwriter in a tempest?'
'If it plaize you, zur,' the prisoner answered, 'Oi do but think o' m' ould mother at Wellington, and woonder who will kape her now that Oi'm gone!'
'And what is that to me?' shouted the brutal seaman. 'How can you arrive at your journey's end sound and hearty if you sit like a sick fowl upon a perch? Laugh, man, and be merry, or I will give you something to weep for. Out on you, you chicken-hearted swab, to sulk and fret like a babe new weaned! Have you not all that heart could desire? Give him a touch with the rope's-end, Jem, if ever you do observe him fretting. It is but to spite us that he doth it.'
'If it please your honour,' said a seaman, coming hurriedly down from the deck, 'there is a stranger upon the poop who will have speech with your honour.'
'What manner of man, sirrah?'
'Surely he is a person of quality, your honour. He is as free wi' his words as though he were the captain o' the ship. The boatswain did but jog against him, and he swore so woundily at him and stared at him so, wi' een like a tiger-cat, that Job Harrison says we have shipped the devil himsel.' The men don't like the look of him, your honour!'
'Who the plague can this spark be?' said the skipper. 'Go on deck, Jem, and tell him that I am counting my live stock, and that I shall be with him anon.'
'Nay, your honour! There will trouble come of it unless you come up. He swears that he will not bear to be put off, and that he must see you on the instant.'
'Curse his blood, whoever he be!' growled the seaman. 'Every cock on his own dunghill. What doth the rogue mean? Were he the Lord High Privy Seal, I would have him to know that I am lord of my own quarter-deck!' So saying, with many snorts of indignation, the mate and the captain withdrew together up the ladder, banging the heavy hatchways down as they passed through.
A single oil-lamp swinging from a beam in the centre of the gangway which led between the rows of cells was the only light which was vouchsafed us. By its yellow, murky glimmer we could dimly see the great wooden ribs of the vessel, arching up on either side of us, and crossed by the huge beams which held the deck. A grievous stench from foul bilge water poisoned the close, heavy air. Every now and then, with a squeak and a clutter, a rat would dart across the little zone of light and vanish in the gloom upon the further side. Heavy breathing all round me showed that my companions, wearied out by their journey and their sufferings, had dropped into a slumber. From time to time one could hear the dismal clank of fetters, and the start and incatching of the breath, as some poor peasant, fresh from dreams of his humble homestead amid the groves of the Mendips, awoke of a sudden to see the great wooden coffin around him, and to breathe the venomous air of the prison ship.