JACK ADAM S, THE MUTINEER. BY CAPTAIN CHAMIER, R. N. AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF A SAILOR," "BEN BRACE," &c. &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1838. JACK ADAM S. CHAPTER I. WHAT'S in the wind now?" said M'Koy to Quintal; "I'm blessed if we had not better look out for ourselves; for if these chaps who sent a boat-load of shipmates to the sharks are beginning to psalm-sing, there's something adrift which is not all right." "It is always the way, M'Koy; whenever a man is about to get his neck made a little longer, without troubling himself to stretch it, they get a parson to tell him that if he only VOL. III. B says his prayer he'll go aloft with a clean bill of health, and not be whipped in quarantine until the health officer hauls down the yellow flag. I remember, some time ago, when a messmate of mine, a precious fellow for what we cannot get, grog, took it into his head to cut one of his shipmate's throats, and then thinking that he saw one of the forecastle men reeving the yard-rope to trice him up like a scrubbed hammock to dry, he took the liberty to let a little daylight into his own. Well, the man who had his throat cut against his consent, slipped his wind before he could get the parson to overhaul his conscience, and he was declared to be booked for a hot berth; but the chap who murdered one man, and had taken an uncomfortable liberty with his own throat, had time enough to bob his head when the parson asked him some questions; and when he died I heard one of his messmates say, "It's all right, the dog-shores are cut away, Ben is safely launched, and the parson says he's sure to go aloft." "This is a cursed life we lead here, sure |