“As I was saying, when I married and settled down amongst the hills to the east’ard o’ the Sacramento, I thought I’d about served my time on deep water and had come on the beach for good. You see, I married old man White’s daughter—he was a brother to Skipper White, what sailed that race with old man Gore around the Cape—and, as the gal was young and had helped keep house for the old man, I reckoned we’d get along first-rate. But there was bad blood in that White family. The old man had run a boarding-house down by the St. Joe Mission, and he was a bad man. His wife’s brother, Skipper Anderson, had done some queer things, and had got a hard name on the West Coast long ago, when I was with him. So, you see, there was bad blood in the family.

“After I had married and bought a little farm, I just settled down, peaceful like, and waited for the family to increase and multiply. You can bet I was some astonished one day, about two months afterward, when I found the family had increased and multiplied all of a sudden like.

“So I went to the fellow what sold me this vial—which cures most things in the head—and he told me there was no accounting for the strange and curious things what happen along in the course o’ nature. At first, though, he began on science, and told me there was no explanation unless I could follow him through a lot o’ stuff what was writ in a book in a foreign language. He had just about convinced me that all was right when he began on the course o’ nature.

“I ain’t much when it’s a question of science or foreign languages, but I’m way up as high as a skysail truck when it comes down to the course o’ nature. So I told him I guessed it was a family affair, and that I wouldn’t be missed much if I left the valley.

“He grinned some, and told me I was a suspicious old duffer, and I smashed a bottle of castor-oil over his figgerhead, and started for ’Frisco.

“You see, I had a bit o’ stuff left out of that deal on the Clipperton Reef, where we dived for gold in a couple of fathoms of water as it lay in the bilge of the Isabella. I reckoned to live easy enough without standing watch. I wouldn’t trust to them banks, so I had the stuff in bills stitched in a belt around my waist. When I got to town, a man came up to me with a rush and grabbed me by the hand, and he was no other than that rascal mate of Hollender’s what got two years for an incident on a voyage to Havre.

“I wasn’t glad to see the fellow, as I always had a liking for clean company. But I was feeling lonesome. He just fell down and rolled over with laughing, saying: ‘Oh, it can’t be true, it can’t be true. Oh, no, no, no; it can’t possibly be true. It ain’t so. There ain’t no such luck.’ And he laughed so hard that the tears rolled down out of his little, fishy eyes. All the time swearing that, of all men, he was most pleased to meet his old shipmate Garnett.

We went about town and took a few drinks together, and he kept on laughing and telling me how glad he was to meet me again. I paid for the drinks, and I guess I drank some.

“The next morning when I woke up, I didn’t have a thing left in the world but the shirt I slept in. The scoundrel would have taken that, too, if it hadn’t fitted me so tight. He even took my old shoes.

“There I was, half-naked, a-roarin’ an’ bellowin’ for further orders, till they clapped me into the calaboose for a crazy, half-drunken old sailor. They gave me some togs after I got sober enough to put them on, and, as I had nothing left in the world, I had to sign on, and I soon finds myself in Liverpool.

“But it was all them clothes’ fault I took to this job. Them Samaritans wot lives intirely fer the sake o’ others mostly fumigates all their clothes o’ the clink. Likewise the smell o’ the sulphur sticks in them, an’ somehow I must have smelt like a gorilla, fer as soon as I heaves in sight o’ any one, they puts their fingers to their noses and sheers off. Sink me, Mr. Gore, that was a fine odour I carries about me, an’ if ye object to a bit o’ peppermint salts,—which is good fer the head,—yer ought ter smelt me then.

“I asked a man fer a job buildin’ a house,—not as I ever had a hand at buildin’ afore, but he just sheers off and coughs, an’ calls me a stinkin’ skunk, and I heaves a brick at him. Then I tries a store sellin’ meat, but they sicks the dog on me, and I heaves away again.

“’Twas that way everywhere I goes. Nobody would stand near me an’ listen to my tale. I couldn’t shuck the clothes, and I couldn’t get clear o’ the smell. So I finally starts down alongshore, where the smells is so mixed there’s no tellin’ which stinks the worst.

“Here I runs across this Webster, who is cousin to old man Jackson at the Falklands, and who is the most uncommon damn fool, as he says himself.”

“’Pon me whurd, he’s got the proper man for a mate to back him, thin,” observed O’Toole.

“I do know something about handling canvas,” answered Garnett, taking the remark for a compliment; “but may I eternally stew if I don’t speak the truth when I says it takes a m-a-n to handle those gangs about decks.”

“What air ye pratin’ about, man? Do ye mane yer own watch?”

“Now, stave me endwise if you ain’t the same red-headed idiot you always was,” growled Garnett. “Calling a watch a gang! Lord love ye, man, there are one hundred and twenty men atween decks o’ that clipper, and every mother’s son is an out an’ out, all around—”

“Steady, steady, mate,” I said. “Those ladies will hear you if you don’t brace up that tongue of yours.”

“D’ye mane t’ say ye are a convict ship?” cried O’Toole, in amazement.

I tried to conceal my astonishment, but O’Toole jumped up and stood on the hatch, staring hard at the Englishman. “’Pon me whurd, it is so, fer a fact. Now may the prophet sind us a good wind to waft us from sich company. B’ th’ faith av the howly saints, Garnett, I never thought it. ’Pon me whurd I didn’t. Now that’s a cargo I don’t want to sail with, an’ ye must be way down, shipmate, when ye drop t’ th’ carrying av a lot av human cattle. Lord! One hundred and twenty poor divils goin’ ter hell as fast as Bill Garnett can pilot them. So that’s the whyfore ye are headed for the Andamans.”

“Sure,” was Garnett’s laconic answer.

“But you don’t turn to the whole gang at once, do you?” I asked.

“How in the name of thunder can ye turn to a hundred and twenty men in irons,” answered the old mate, with a grin. “Turn them out in small gangs, man. Poor devils they be, sure enough, but they get plenty of exercise atween decks when the old hooker gets a-switching into it, when it comes on to blow. Besides, those ports you see painted on her sides there are not all make-believe. Some of them will open and let in the air, when the hatches make it too close. I’ve been in worse places than that ’tween decks on that ship, and I never was a convict, either.”

“I’ve heard tell that law and justice were two things av an ontirely different nature,” grunted O’Toole, without removing his gaze from the convict ship.

“S’help me, ’tis a fact,” chuckled Garnett, “and I onct heard a skipper say that he had onct met a man who was a bigger fool than Larry O’Toole,—but he couldn’t call to mind exactly who the fellow was.”

While the mates were chaffing each other, an uproar arose from the after cabin.

I could distinguish Crojack’s hoarse voice, raised to a pitch that I knew meant danger to some one. The cabin skylight was open, and the voices of both skippers seemed to come from just beneath it.

“D’ye mean to say that England owns the whole Western Ocean?” roared the old man.

“Up to within three miles of any beach whatever,” cried the little Englishman. “But don’t bellow at me, sir; I’m not deaf, and I won’t allow any one to bellow at me, sir.”

“Well, by gorry! England don’t,” roared Crojack.

“I decline to argue the case any further with you, sir,” replied the small skipper, “but I’ll head my course just the same. You have a most uncommon voice, sir, also most extraordinary good grog. So fill my glass and don’t sit there bellowing at me, sir. Nothing aggravates me more than a man bellowing at me. Don’t do it, I say, or I’ll go—”

“You may go to hell!” roared Crojack.

“I may, sir, indeed I may, but”—then came a pause during which I could hear the clink of glasses—“if I do, sir, I’ll head a straight course, sir, and arrive there shipshape with my yards squared, so her Majesty’ll have no cause to be ashamed of me, though I sincerely hope—”

Then the voice of the little skipper drew away, and I glanced at the door of the companionway just as his cap appeared above the combings.

As he stepped on deck he bowed to the ladies and proceeded, with great deliberation, to put on his coat. He had removed it during the discussion below.

“Madam,” said he, addressing Mrs. Waters, “I should extend the hospitality of my ship to you—that is, I would invite you to do me the honour of a visit—were it not that the cargo we carry is unworthy of inspection. I, therefore, wish you a pleasant voyage, and trust your husband will learn moderation from you. If not, he will prove a most uncommon and extraordinary companion for you,” and he waved his hand at Crojack, who stood on the top step of the companionway. The little skipper then walked quietly to the break of the poop and sung out lustily for Mr. Garnett. Captain Crojack remained aft, his face wearing an expression of extreme ill humour.

Garnett was within two fathoms of his master, but he sprang to his feet at the hail and answered, “Ay, ay, sir,” in hurricane tones.

“Mr. Garnett, is the boat ready?”

“Yes, sir, all ready, sir,” bawled the old sailor as he glanced at the two men of his crew. They immediately sprang over the rail and dropped into her.

“Is all the gear in her?”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“Then take me aboard my ship as quick as you can, for I’ve wasted all the morning talking to a blockhead.” And he made his way over the side without a word of farewell to Crojack. Garnett followed instantly, and in a few moments they were back again on board the Englishman.

From our decks we could hear the old mate bawling orders to a crowd of sailors, who hooked on the tackles and whisked the small boat on to its berth almost before the skipper had walked aft to the poop.