Mr. Trunnell | Page 2

both ends," assented the fellow, utterly ignoring my meaning. "It's always so with every hooker if she's deep. Some takes it forrad and aft, and some takes it amidships. It's all one s'long as she keeps a dry bilge. Come aboard."
I hesitated, and then climbed up the mizzen channels, which were level with the wharf.
"Short handed?" I suggested, reaching the deck.
"Naw, there's nobody but me an' the doctor in the after guard; we'll get a crew aboard early in the morning, though; skipper, too, if what they say is kerrect."
"Where's the captain?" I asked.
He looked queerly at me for a moment; then he spread his short legs wide apart, and thrust his great hands into his trousers pockets before speaking.
"Ain't ye never heard? Limbo, man, and a bad job, too." Here he made a motion with his hand around his neck which I understood.
"Murder?"
He nodded.
I hesitated about staying any longer, and he spoke up.
"Got a hog-yoke, I see," he said, "Be ye a mate?"
I told him I had been.
"Well, sink me, my boy, that's just what I am aboard here, and they'll be looking for another to match me. I saw what ye were when I first raised ye coming along the dock, and sez I, ye're just my size, my bully."
As he could have walked under my arm when extended horizontally, I saw he had no poor opinion of himself. However, his words conveyed a ray of hope.
"Is the mate with the skipper?" I asked.
"The second mate is, yep; but he won't raise bail. The old man might though, _quien sabe_? The agents will hail us to-night and settle matters, for we're on the load line and nigh steved. We can't wait."
I reflected a moment. Here was a possible chance for a mate's berth, and perhaps the skipper would not get bail, after all. In that case I thought I could hardly manage better, for my fear of the little mate was not overpowering. I was not exactly of a timid nature,--a man seldom rises to be mate of a deep-water ship who is,--but I always dreaded a brutal skipper on account of his absolute authority at sea, where there is no redress. I had once been mixed up in an affair concerning the disappearance of one, on a China trader--but no matter. The affair in hand was tempting and I waited developments.
The little mate saw my course and laid his accordingly.
"S'pose you come around about knock-off time. The agents will be along about then--Sauers and Co.; you know them; and I'll fix the thing for you."
"All right," I said, and after a little conversation relating to the merits of various ships, the Pirate in particular, I left and made my way back to my lodgings.
I notified my landlord of my proposed voyage, and he was as gracious as could be expected, at the same time expressing some wonderment at the suddenness of my good fortune.
The more I thought of the matter, the more I felt like trying elsewhere for a berth; but the time flew so rapidly that I found myself on the way to the ship before my misgivings took too strong hold of me.
As I turned down the principal thoroughfare, feeling in a more humorous frame of mind at the many possibilities open to me, I heard a shout. The sound came from a side street, and I looked to see what it meant. Through the door of a saloon a man shot head-long as if fired from a gun. He struck in the gutter and staggered to his feet, where he was immediately surrounded by the crowd of men that had followed him. This promised much in the way of diversion, and I stopped to see what hidden force lurked behind the door of the saloon. As I did so, a short fellow with a great bushy head emerged, struggling with half a dozen men who bore down upon him and tried to surround and seize him. The little man's face was red from exertion and liquor, but when I caught a glimpse of his great squat nose and huge mouth I had no difficulty in recognizing my acquaintance on the Pirate. He backed rapidly away from his antagonists, swinging a pair of arms each of which seemed to be fully half a fathom long while every instant he let out a yell that sounded like the bellow of a mad bull. Suddenly he turned and made off down the street at an astonishing pace for one with such short legs, still letting out a yell at every jump.
The men who had set upon him hesitated an instant before they realized he was getting away; then they started after him, shouting and swearing at a great rate. He was up to me in an instant,