Page:Stevenson - The Wrecker (1892).djvu/401

Rh foresail boom, then knocked him under it, and had set him up and knocked him down once more, before any one had drawn a breath.

“Here! Belay that!” roared Wicks, leaping to his feet. “I won't have none of this.”

Mac turned to the captain with ready civility. “I only want to learn him manners,” said he. “He took and called me Irishman.”

“Did he?” said Wicks. “Oh, that's a different story! What made you do it, you tomfool? You ain't big enough to call any man that.”

“I didn't call him it,” spluttered Hemstead, through his blood and tears. “I only mentioned-like he was.”

“Well, let's have no more of it,” said Wicks.

“But you are Irish, ain't you?” Carthew asked of his new shipmate shortly after.

“I may be,” replied Mac, “but I'll allow no Sydney duck to call me so. No,” he added, with a sudden heated countenance, “nor any Britisher that walks! Why, look here,” he went on, “you're a young swell, aren't you? Suppose I called you that! 'I'll show you,' you would say, and turn to and take it out of me straight.”

On the 28th of January, when in lat. 27° 20' N., long. 177° W., the wind chopped suddenly into the west, not very strong, but puffy and with flaws of rain. The captain, eager for easting, made a fair wind of it and guyed the booms out wing and wing. It was Tommy's trick at the wheel, and as it was within half an hour of the relief (7.30 in the morning), the captain judged it not worth while to change him.

The puffs were heavy but short; there was nothing to be called a squall, no danger to the ship, and scarce more than usual to the doubtful spars. All hands were on deck in their oilskins, expecting breakfast; the galley smoked, the ship smelt of