Page:Stevenson - The Wrecker (1892).djvu/143

Rh “Nearest police office!” cried the leader.

“This way,” said I, immediately falling in with their precipitate pace. “What's wrong? What ship is that?”

“That's the Gleaner,” he replied. “I am chief officer, this gentleman's third; and we've to get in our depositions before the crew. You see they might corral us with the captain; and that's no kind of berth for me. I've sailed with some hard cases in my time, and seen pins flying like sand on a squally day—but never a match to our old man. It never let up from the Hook to the Farallones; and the last man was dropped not sixteen hours ago. Packet rats our men were, and as tough a crowd as ever sand-bagged a man's head in; but they looked sick enough when the captain started in with his fancy shooting.”

“Oh, he's done up,” observed the other. “He won't go to sea no more.”

“You make me tired,” retorted his superior. “If he gets ashore in one piece and isn't lynched in the next ten minutes, he'll do yet. The owners have a longer memory than the public; they'll stand by him; they don't find as smart a captain every day in the year.”

“Oh, he's a son of a gun of a fine captain; there ain't no doubt of that,” concurred the other, heartily. “Why, I don't suppose there's been no wages paid aboard that Gleaner for three trips.”

“No wages?” I exclaimed, for I was still a novice in maritime affairs.

“Not to sailor-men before the mast,” agreed the mate. “Men cleared out; wasn't the soft job they maybe took it for. She isn' [sic] the first ship that never paid wages.”

I could not but observe that our pace was progressively relaxing; and indeed I have often wondered since whether the hurry of the start were not intended for the gallery alone. Certain it is at least,