and then, the stamping of feet, and the cry of "time" rising suddenly above the sinister and excited murmurs; night-prowlers, pursued or pursuing, with a stifled shriek followed by profound silence, or slinking stealthily alongside like ghosts, and addressing me from below in mysterious tones with incomprehensible propositions. The cabmen, too, who twice aweek, on the night when the A.S.N. passenger boat was due to arrive, used to range a battalion of blazing lamps opposite the ship, were very amusing in their way. They got down from their perches and told impolite stories in a racy language, every word of which reached me distinctly over the bulwarks as I sat smoking on the main-hatch. On one occasion I had an hour or two of a most intellectual conversation with a person whom I could not see distinctly, a gentleman from England, he said, with a cultivated voice, I on deck and he on the quay, sitting on the case of a piano (landed out of the hold that very afternoon), smoking a cigar which smelt very good. We touched, or rather he did, upon science, politics, natural history, and even opera. Then after remarking abruptly, "You seem to me to be rather intelligent, my man," he informed me pointedly that his name was Senior, and walked off-to his hotel, I suppose. Shadows! shadows! I think I sawa white whisker as he turned under the lamp-post. It shocks me to think that in the natural course of things he must be dead by now. There was nothing to object to in his intelligence, but a little dogmatism maybe. And his name was Senior! The position had its drawbacks, however. One wintry, blustering, dark night in July, as I stood sleepily out of the rain near the cabin door, a figure flew up the gangway. I say flew, because it seemed to have wings: it was a man, however, only his coat torn in two at the back, and flapping about his head, gave him a weird and fowl-like appearance. At least that is my theory, for it was impossible to make him out distinctly. How he managed to come so straight upon me at speed, and without a stumble over a strange deck, I cannot imagine. He must have been able to see in the dark better than any cat. He overwhelmed me with hoarse entreaties to let him shelter till morning in our forecastle. As in duty bound, I refused, mildly at first, in a sterner tone as he persisted with a note of impudence in his whining. "For God's sake let me, matey. They are after me the whole lot of them, I tell you." "Get out," I said. "Won't you?" "No, I tell you. Get over that gangway at once. Do you hear?" Silence. He appeared to cringe, mute as if words had failed him through grief, then bang!-came a great flash of light in which he vanished, leaving me prone on my back with the most atrocious black eye that anybody ever got in the faithful discharge of duty. Shadows! shadows! I hope he escaped the enemies he was fleeing from to live and flourish to this day. But his fist was uncommonly hard and his aim miraculously true in the dark. There were other experiences, less painful and more funny for the most part, with one amongst them of a dramatic complexion; but the greatest experience of them all was Mr B., our chief mate himself. He used to go ashore every night to forgather with his crony, the mate of the barque Cicero, lying on the other side of the Circular Quay. Late at night I would hear from afar their stumbling footsteps and their voices raised in endless argument. The mate of the Cicero was seeing his friend on board. They would continue their senseless and muddled discourse in tones of profound friendship for half an hour or so at the shore end of our gangway, and then I would hear Mr B. insisting that he must see the other on board his ship. And away they would go, their voices, still conversing with excessive amity, being heard moving all round the harbour. It happened more than once that they would thus perambulate three or four times the distance, each seeing the other on board his ship out of pure and disinterested affection. Then, through sheer weariness, or perhaps in a moment of forgetfulness, they would manage to part from each other somehow, and by-and-by the planks of our long gangway would bend and creak under the weight of Mr B. coming on board for good at last. On the rail his burly form would stop and stand swaying. "Watchman!" "Yes, sir." A pause. He waited for a moment of steadiness before negotiating the five steps of the inside ladder from rail to deck; and the watchman, taught by experience, would forbear offering help which would be received as an insult at that particular stage of the mate's return. But many times I trembled for his neck. He was a heavy man. Then with a rush and a thump it would be done. He never had to pick himself up; but it took him a minute or so to pull himself together after the descent. "Watchman!" а Pause. Our dog was gaunt and unpleasant beast, more like a wolf in poor health than a dog, and I never noticed Mr B. at any other time show the slightest interest in the doings of the animal. But that question never failed. "Give me your arm and steady me along." I was always prepared for that request. He leaned on me heavily till near enough and then, the stamping of feet, and the cry of "time" rising suddenly above the sinister and excited murmurs; night-prowlers, pursued or pursuing, with a stifled shriek followed by profound silence, or slinking stealthily alongside like ghosts, and addressing me from below in mysterious tones with incomprehensible propositions. The cabmen, too, who twice aweek, on the night when the A.S.N. passenger boat was due to arrive, used to range a battalion of blazing lamps opposite the ship, were very amusing in their way. They got down from their perches and told impolite stories in a racy language, every word of which reached me distinctly over the bulwarks as I sat smoking on the main-hatch. On one occasion I had an hour or two of a most intellectual conversation with a person whom I could not see distinctly, a gentleman from England, he said, with a cultivated voice, I on deck and he on the quay, sitting on the case of a piano (landed out of the hold that very afternoon), smoking a cigar which smelt very good. We touched, or rather he did, upon science, politics, natural history, and even opera. Then after remarking abruptly, "You seem to me to be rather intelligent, my man," he informed me pointedly that his name was Senior, and walked off-to his hotel, I suppose. Shadows! shadows! I think I sawa white whisker as he turned under the lamp-post. It shocks me to think that in the natural course of things he must be dead by now. There was nothing to object to in his intelligence, but a little dogmatism maybe. And his name was Senior! The position had its drawbacks, however. One wintry, blustering, dark night in July, as I stood sleepily out of the rain near the cabin door, a figure flew up the gangway. I say flew, because it seemed to have wings: it was a man, however, only his coat torn in two at the back, and flapping about his head, gave him a weird and fowl-like appearance. At least that is my theory, for it was impossible to make him out distinctly. How he managed to come so straight upon me at speed, and without a stumble over a strange deck, I cannot imagine. He must have been able to see in the dark better than any cat. He overwhelmed me with hoarse entreaties to let him shelter till morning in our forecastle. forecastle. As in duty bound, I refused, mildly at first, in a sterner tone as he persisted with a note of impudence in his whining. "For God's sake let me, matey. They are after me the whole lot of them, I tell you." "Get out," I said. "No, I tell you. Get over that gangway at once. Do you hear?" Silence. He appeared to cringe, mute as if words had failed him through grief, then bang!-came a great flash of light in which he vanished, leaving me prone on my back with the most atrocious black eye that anybody ever got in the faithful discharge of duty. Shadows! shadows! I hope he escaped the enemies he was fleeing from to live and flourish to this day. But his fist was uncommonly hard and his aim miraculously true in the dark. There were other experiences, less painful and more funny for the most part, with one amongst them of a dramatic complexion; but the greatest experience of them all was Mr B., our chief mate himself. He used to go ashore every night to forgather with his crony, the mate of the barque Cicero, lying on the other side of the Circular Quay. Late at night I would hear from afar their stumbling footsteps and their voices raised in endless argument. The mate of the Cicero was seeing his friend on board. They would continue their senseless and muddled discourse in tones of profound friendship for half an hour or so at the shore end of our gangway, and then I would hear Mr B. insisting that he must see the other on board his ship. And away they would go, their voices, still conversing with excessive amity, being heard moving all round the harbour. It happened more than once that they would thus perambulate three or four times the distance, each seeing the other on board his ship out of pure and disinterested affection. Then, through sheer weariness, or perhaps in a moment of forgetfulness, they would manage to part from each other somehow, and by-and-by the planks of our long gangway would bend and creak under the weight of Mr B. coming on board for good at last. On the rail his burly form would stop and stand swaying. "Watchman!" "Yes, sir." A pause. He waited for a moment of steadiness before negotiating the five steps of the inside ladder from rail to deck; and the the watchman, taught by experience, would forbear offering help which would be received as an insult at that particular stage of the mate's return. But many times I trembled for his neck. He was a heavy man. Then with a rush and a thump it would be done. He never had to pick himself up; but it took him a minute or so to pull himself together after the descent. "Watchman!" "Dog aboard?" Pause. Our dog was а gaunt and unpleasant beast, more like a wolf in poor health than a dog, and I never noticed Mr B. at any other time show the slightest interest in the doings of the animal. But that question never failed. "Give me your arm and steady me along." I was always prepared for that request. that request. He leaned on me heavily till near enough the cabin door to catch hold of the handle. Then he would let go of my arm at once. "That'll do. I can manage now." And he could manage. He could manage to find his way into his berth, light his lamp, get into his bed, ay, and get out of it when I called him at half-past five, the first man on deck, lifting the cup of morning coffee to his lips with a steady hand-ready for duty as though he had virtuously slept ten solid hours-a better chiefofficer than many a man who had never tasted grog in his life. He could manage all that, but could never manage to get on in life. Only once he failed to catch hold of the cabin door-handle at the first grab. He waited a little, tried again, and again failed. His weight was growing heavier on my arm. sighed slowly. He "D-n that handle." Without letting go his hold of me he turned about, his face lit up bright as day by the full moon. "I wish she were out at sea," he growled savagely. "Yes, sir!" I felt the need to say something, because he hung on to me as if lost, breathing heavily. "Ports are no good. Ships rot-men go to the devil." I kept still, and after a while he repeated "I wish she were at sea out of this." "So do I, sir," I ventured. Holding my shoulder, he turned upon me. "You! What's that to you where she is? You don'tdrink." And even on that night he "managed it" at last. He got hold of the handle. But he did not manage to light his lamp (I don't think he even tried), though in the morning as usual he was the first on deck, bullnecked, curly-headed, watching the hands turn - to with his sardonic expression and unflinching gaze. I met him ten years afterwards, casually, unexpectedly, in the street, on coming out of my consignee office. I was not likely to have forgotten him with his "I can manage now." He recognised me at once, remembered my name, and in what ship I served under his orders. He looked me over from head to foot. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "I am commanding a little barque," I said, "loading here for Mauritius." Then thoughtlessly I added, "And what are you doing, Mr B. ?" "I," he said, looking at me unflinchingly with his old sardonic grin,-"I am looking for something to do." I felt I would rather have bitten out my tongue. His jet black curly hair had turned iron grey; he was scrupulously neat as ever, but frightfully threadbare. His shiny boots were worn down at heel. But he forgave me, and we drove off together in a hansom to dine on board my ship. He went over her conscientiously, praised her heartily, congratu |
