Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/233

Rh velveteen coats and trousers; Italians muffled up in jerseys; Spaniards playing cards before the roaring fire; half-castes smoking cheroots and drinking from china pots; Englishmen lying wrapped in rugs, asleep, or bawling songs to a small audience, which gave a chorus back in mellifluous curses; Russians drunk with spirits; Frenchmen chattering; Chinese mooningly silent; over all an atmosphere of smoke and foul odours, of fetid warmth and stifling heaviness.

As we entered the place the din was deafening, a medley of shouts and oaths, of songs and execrations; but it ceased when the captain bawled "Silence!" and an unusual stillness prevailed. The man Four-Eyes, who was always the immediate "go-between" so far as the captain and crew were concerned, at once put chairs for us near the huge fireplace, setting a great armchair for the skipper, with a small table whereon were many papers, and a small wooden hammer such as the chairman of a meeting commonly uses. Black took his seat in the great chair, with the doctor, the Scotsman, and myself around him; and then he harangued the men.

"Boys," he said, "we're home again. I give you luck on it—and swill it down in liquor."

I noticed that he had put on with his entry into the room all his old fierceness of manner and coarseness. He shouted out his words