CHAPTER II.

THE CREW OF THE "HERMIONE" DISCONTENTED.

For days Captain Hawkshaw was haunted by the recollection of that strange episode, the sinking corpse; whose features--seen through the fevered medium of his own imagination and his guilty conscience--seemed to assume the likeness of Morley Ashton, as they went slowly down through the green, translucent sea, after Dr. Leslie Heriot had attached the cannon-shot to its heels.

He accounted for the exclamation of horror that escaped him, by saying to those in the boat that he felt a sudden qualm of sickness, of disgust, or a giddiness; and his first resource when on board was to Joe, the captain's steward, for his brandy bottle.

When he began to reason with himself, however, in a calmer moment, he perceived the impossibility of the remains being those of Morley Ashton, as no influence of current, tide, or wind could have drifted them from the coast of Britain so far through the ocean as the South Atlantic.

The idea was absurd--impossible!

Moreover, the drowned man had not been dead more than a week to all appearance; and then his hands had grasped a life-buoy, evincing that he must have fallen overboard from some ship, or been the victim of a wreck.

When the impression of that affair began to wear away, his fears of the two Barradas, and a recollection of the manner in which Pedro, Bill Badger, the bulky Yankee, and others of the crew had insulted him, resumed their sway; but after a time he began to take courage.

"What have I to fear from the Barradas? Nothing!" he would whisper to himself, as if to gather comfort from the echo of his own thoughts. "Suppose they denounce me to my friends--to Ethel--I have simply to deny, and that is all. The story of the padre--d----nation!--no, I mean of the Barranca Secca--I have already told, and Master Zuares does not shine in that affair. Even to Ethel it is nothing new, for I have related it more than once, to increase her horror of the Barradas when the crisis comes."

A _crisis_ was coming, which the captain did not quite foresee!

"Even to Ethel it is nothing new--I can deny, deny, and defy them all. 'Tis only my word against theirs."

This was all very well; but ere the voyage ended there occurred several events, which alike put the captain's courage and resolution to flight.

As the _Hermione_ approached the Cape of Good Hope, she encountered alternate storms and calms, with weather so unusually cold for the season, that Hawkshaw had a fair excuse for permitting his whiskers and moustache to resume their wonted aspect of luxuriance, as he had ceased to hope for concealment on board.

Though pretty well inured now, by their very protracted voyage, to the discomforts of ship-life, Ethel and Rose Basset remained a good deal in the cabin, especially the former, to avoid Hawkshaw's attention, which were thus repressed by the presence of the captain, when it was not his watch, of Mr. Quail, or her father, who preferred to lie reading or lounging on the cabin locker, to facing on deck the spoon-drift that flew over the lee quarter when the ship was going free.

She found Adrian Manfredi, the young Italian mate, a pleasant companion, for Rose rather absorbed the society of Dr. Heriot. He was gentlemanly and well bred; he had seen much of the world, and her preference for him was so decided, that Hawkshaw felt at times a pang of jealous rage in his heart, which was in no way soothed when, in the mate's hours of leisure, they took to reading together in Italian, "I Promessi Sposi," the beautiful novel of Alessandro Manzoni, from the neat little three-volume edition, printed at Lugano.

This emotion became all the more bitter after Ethel gave Manfredi a handsome gold locket, to hold the hair of his little brother, "the brave boy, Attilio," whose story he told in a previous chapter.

The young man was no doubt charmed by the beauty and society of a sweet English girl like Ethel Basset; thus his voice became mellow and soft whenever he addressed her, and his eyes sparkled with admiration and pleasure whenever he saw her, but beyond this, no sign of a deeper emotion escaped him. Perhaps he felt the folly or futility of encouraging it.

On the other hand, Ethel's preference for him was greatly induced by some real or imaginary resemblance which she saw, or thought she saw, in his features to those of Morley Ashton; though Rose and her father failed to perceive it, and Hawkshaw, who always trembled in his soul at the young man's name, treated the idea with angry ridicule.

The sullenness and other growing peculiarities in the bearing of the crew had been increasing, so that some would scarcely obey those orders necessary for the working of the ship. Captain Phillips, though full of anxiety for the probable issue, resolved to forbear until a ship of war hove in sight, or until he could dismiss some and put others in prison, if this state of matters still continued, when the _Hermione_ hauled up for Table Bay.

One day Adrian Manfredi had charge of the deck.

The ship was running nearly fair before a fine topgallant breeze; there was not much of a sea on, but the sky was lowering, and a great gray bank of cloud was resting on the ocean to the northward, for they were encountering regular Cape weather now.

Manfredi was conversing with Ethel from time to time, and she was still busy with the last volume of "I Promessi Sposi," when one of the crew, named Samuel Sharkey, a coarse, square stump of a fellow, having great misshapen hands, a large and very ugly visage, came deliberately aft, with a short black pipe in his mouth, and stood near her, puffing with great coolness, and eyeing her with a very admiring leer.

Ethel glanced at him uneasily, and removed to a seat nearer the taffrail, for there was cool insolence in the man's sinister eyes and bearing which alarmed her very much.

On this, Sharkey, the seaman, gave a peculiar whistle, to which Bill Badger, the tall, ungainly Yankee, who was at the wheel, responded; and these signals now attracted the attention of Manfredi, who had been looking aloft, and securing some of the halyards to the belaying-pins.

"Hollo, you sir!" said he, "what do you want aft, eh?"

"None o' your grand airs, Mister Manfreddy," was the sulky response, "'cos they won't do in this part o' blue water, so I tells you at once."

"Take that pipe out of your mouth; remember that you are on the quarter-deck, and there is a lady here."

"That is just what brought me aft. Are you chaps and the cabin passengers a goin' to keep the gals--the old judge's darters--all to yourselves? I don't mean to offend you, marm; oh, not at all, by no manner o' means," he continued, making a mock bow to Ethel; "but, shiver my topsails, if, mayhap, we won't be better acquainted afore we sights Maddygascar and the gut of the Mosambique Channel--ha, ha!"

And as he concluded he continued to leer at Ethel.

"You are drunk, fellow," said Manfredi, who was resolved to keep his temper, if possible, for the man's words contained in them a reference to ultimate views sufficiently daring to excite alarm.

"I am no more a feller than you are, mayhap not so much," replied Sharkey, taking his huge square hands out of his trousers pockets and proceeding to clench them very ominously; "and as for being two or three cloths in the wind, 'taint the six-water grog as we gets aboard o' this 'ere beastly craft as will make me so."

"Go forward, I command you, or by Heaven I'll throw you overboard," said Manfredi, in a hoarse voice.

"If you want to swim, there may be two as can play at that," responded the ugly seaman; "but I knows summut easier in seamanship, and I would advise you to l'arn it."

"What is it?"

"To run ten knots an hour right in the wind's eye, with everything set that will draw, aloft and alow, skyscrapers, moonrakers, and all."

"My dear Miss Basset, I beg of you to excuse this scene, and permit me to lead you below," said Manfredi, with an agitated manner, to Ethel, who had listened to all this with great dismay.

"My dear, don't do nothin' o' the sort; just stay here and see how I'll rib-roast him," said Sharkey.

"Go forward, you gallows lubber!" thundered Manfredi, growing pale with a passion which he strove to repress, lest he should terrify Ethel, between whom and this seaman he interposed.

Sharkey, instead of complying, put his right hand behind him, and suddenly drew forth a sheath-knife--one of those ugly weapons which few seamen are now without. Armed with this, he was about to make a rush at Manfredi, when the latter, quick as thought, and as if he had anticipated some such catastrophe, snatched up a heavy iron marlinespike and hurled it full at Sharkey's head, with such force and unerring aim that he was knocked down, senseless and bleeding, with a severe wound on the head.

"Carry the scoundrel forward, and drench him well with salt water, to bring him to," said Manfredi, while panting with excitement, to the Barradas and some of the crew who had run aft. He took the knife from Sharkey's relaxed hand, and threw it into the sea, adding, "I will serve every man who disobeys me now in the same fashion, and tow him overboard for twenty knots at the end of a line, if the captain will allow me."

"Mayhap as you won't," growled Sharkey, recovering a little, as he was lifted up by his sulky and muttering messmates; "and if you don't repent this work _afore to-morrow morning_, you infernal Hytalian, my name ain't Sam Sharkey!"

That some general outbreak among the crew was on the _tapis_, and might have taken place but for his own resolute conduct, Manfredi had not a doubt.

With his face covered with blood, the mutineer was carried forward, and Dr. Heriot (whom Ethel's scream when she beheld the scuffle had brought on deck) with others, hastened to the forecastle to examine the wound and have it dressed.

The marlinespike, an iron instrument that tapers like a pin, and is used for separating the strands of rope when splicing or marling, had inflicted a severe wound on the forehead of Sharkey, and the blood was flowing freely from it.

He growled and swore, using fearful oaths and threats, while Heriot, bathed, dressed, and bandaged the gash. Captain Phillips threatened to have him put in irons till the ship reached Cape Town; but as the wound was severe, he permitted him to remain in his berth in the forecastle bunks, where his shipmates remained to console him, and hear his reiterated threats of revenge.

Manfredi apologised to Ethel for the alarm he had unwittingly caused her, but added that no other course was left him but to strike the ruffian down, to preserve his own life and authority.

Quiet Mr. Quail made a due entry of the event among his columns of "remarks" in the ship's log, while Mr. Basset waxed warm at the affair, and expounded learnedly and as became a new-fledged judge, on the law relating to merchant seamen, quoting Shee's edition of "Lord Tenterden," and so forth with great fluency.

So generous and forgiving was Manfredi, that, at lunch time, he sent boy Joe, the captain's steward, forward with a tot of brandy to the patient in the forecastle, and the amiable Mr. Sharkey drank it to the last drop, with a fearful invocation of curses on the donor's head, and thereupon dashed the wooden tot in Joe's face.

Before the first dog-watch the event was apparently forgotten; but it increased the desire of Captain Phillips to reach Cape Town and get rid of some of his crew.