Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/314

 crogic, a jib, an outer jib, a flying jib, and a bonnet on her jib, fore and main lower, top, and top-gallant studding sails, and stay-sails too numerous to mention. She had fifteen cloths in her lower studding sails, and five  hundred yards of canvas in her main course.

July 20. We were now rolling along by the island of St. Helena, with studding sails below and aloft, and our  good ship moving through the water like a thing of life. We were having "watch and watch," so we had plenty of time to mend our clothes and spin yarns. The 20th was the captain’s birthday, and he celebrated it by having the ship’s pet — a good-sized pig — killed. All hands consequently had a fresh mess. Old Tom Taylor, the man who had been put in irons, said, "The old man reminds me of a Portuguese devil — when he is good he  is too good, and when he is bad he is too d—d bad."

The captain had naturally a very ugly temper, and was a great bully. He was known as a bully captain out of Baltimore. Just before this last voyage he had been converted to religion. Probably he had become a better man, but his old habits were still on him, and he  would often rip out and curse all hands as he had been  used to. He sometimes, however, would become aware of his brutality, and would then dive down into his  cabin, and, falling upon his knees, would pray for half an  hour afterward; any one could hear him, he prayed so  loud. Our two mates understood the old man better than we did, and succeeded in preventing many a row. We were now nearing the end of the voyage, and the captain had been so kind in giving us "watch and  watch," which amounted to half time off, that we had