"Second mate aboard?"
"Yes, sir."
A pause ensued as Captain Ramsey unbuttoned his pilot coat, pushed back his cap from his red-rimmed eyes, and grasped the first mate for support. "Chief mate aboard?"
"Just come aboard," said the watchman without a blink.
The first mate, a gorilla-like man with a powerful chest and long arms, lurched to the rail and left the captain without support. "Can't ye see me here, sir?" he queried in hurt tones through his short black beard. "How'd ye ever git here if I hadn't brought yuh!"
"Th's a' right, Mr. Hawkes," hiccoughed the captain. "No harm intended. 'Pologize, Mr. Hawkes. Where's my cabin on this ship?"
"Aft, sir," said the watchman. "Here's the cabin boy, sir. Let him help you."
"Yeh, boy—give me a hand. I wish this was a bark. It was a sad day—when I left the sea—to take a berth in a steamer."
The watchman whispered into Tod's startled ear: "Get 'em to their cabins, kid. You'll have to do it in every port, I'm thinking."
"This way, sir," said Tod.
With the thin, swaying captain on one arm and the heavy-set first mate on the other, Tod went along the port alleyway, past the after hatches, to the poop. In the officers' saloon, where electric globes burned in a brass lamp overhead, the two men dropped into old red plush seats.
Tod, wiping the sweat from his brow, was immediately struck by the strange marine odour of the place. Its walls, at some remote time, had been painted white; it possessed a skylight that could only dimly have let in the light of day. The captain too, appeared to fit into the shadowy contours of the cabin. His gray wisps of hair dropped over his forehead; his weak mouth hung half open. The chief mate had risen and gazed with apparent scorn at his superior officer. He crossed to the table and steadied himself with a hairy paw upon the green baize cover. His round bearded face, flushed with liquor, had lost its look of friendliness. Upon his temple Tod saw a scar which, extending to his cheek, drew down as his dark eyes squinted in a manner that made the boy step backward.
"I ain't goin' ter eat ye," grunted the mate, his thick lower lip jutting outward. "Gi' me a hand, here. We got t' git the Old Man t' bed." He jerked his head toward a door behind him.
Tod opened the door. The light from the saloon lamp showed him a comfortable cabin containing a bed, a chair, and a desk. Together, he and the mate half lifted the captain within, laid him on his bed, and undressed him.
"Now we'll tuck him in nice," said the mate with a grin. "Nighty-night, Captain."
He waved Tod out and stepped into the saloon, closing the door sharply behind them.
"Is that all?" asked Tod. "I'm tired out—think I'll turn in."
From his position near the table the mate whirled, His thick lips writhed in anger; his eyes narrowed to points of glinting fire. "Think you'll turn in, do you?" he blurted. "You wait till I tell ye to."
His long arm reached forth and grasped Tod's shoulder in a grip of iron. Slowly, deliberately, the mate shook the boy, shook him till his teeth chattered and his eyes closed.
"Speak to the first officer like that, will yel I'll learn ye, ye wharf rat! Be 'spectful to yer officer. Git!"
He flung Tod from him with a sudden movement, and the boy went crashing against the cabin wall. The mate stood there with chin shot forward; the scar on his temple flamed crimson. Tod picked himself up.
"Don't speak till ye're spoken to—understan'? And call me 'sir.' Ye got to start right on this ship, or I'll throw ye overboard." He grinned broadly. "We'll lick ye into shape—the cook and I. Yeh, if the cook don't do it, I will. Now go crawl into yer donkey's breakfast, little boy."
The new mess boy of the S. S. Araby was learning. "Yes, sir," he stammered as he let himself out the door. "Yes, sir."
CHAPTER IV
THE CABIN AFT
AT FOUR bells, Tod was roused by the call of the watch. He lay in his bunk for a moment listening to the grumbles of the men as they turned out. The electric globe burned dimly above the table; a lone beam strayed on the wall near his hand. Tod blinked. Something small and brown was moving on the wood of the bunk beside him. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and stared. Yes, there was another of those moving spots. A cockroach! Two of them— no, three. Evidently the men were not to have the forecastle to themselves on this voyage. Well, what was a cockroach, anyway! So long as there was nothing worse He sat up in bed and began pulling off his pajamas.
Suddenly a yell burst from a tall Swede who was slipping into his dungarees across the way. "Yiminy! Look—the kid's undressed!"
Tod glanced round in surprise. The four men of the watch were eyeing him with amazed grins.
"Blimey! What's the bloomin' lubber wearin'?" called the little cockney. "Oh, Gord! Strike me bline if he ain't sleepin' in a suit!"
Tod's cheeks reddened as he slipped into his shirt. One glance told him that all the seamen had slept in their underwear.
"Aw, leave the kid alone, ye blasted limejuicer!" said Nelson the Dane. "Ain't he got a right to wear 'em if he wants to? You guys don't know no better. Ye're too fresh, anyway. He'll larn. Yes, he'll larn."
Tod quickly finished dressing, his mouth a hard thin line. He vowed that at the first opportunity he would toss the offending garments overboard. A forecastle was no place for pajamas!
He followed the men up the three steps to the deck. A chill breeze had sprung up; the sky was strewn with a mass of quivering stars. The water front lay silent and black about him. Aft a winch whirred noisily where the boatswain loaded a few belated boxes.
"By sunrise we'll be sailing," thought Tod, pausing to look about.
How little he knew that morning of the ways of ocean tramps! Unlike the great passenger greyhounds that ply regularly across the lanes of the sea as promptly as the overland express trains, the tramp freighter, rusty and woebegone of aspect, comes and goes like a will-o'-the-wisp, sailing days and even weeks after its scheduled departure. It follows not the well-charted lanes of travel, but takes to the open sea, filling its holds with cargo disdained by the larger ships, and taking it to remote ports of the world seldom visited by its luxurious sisters.
The crews, too, are men of a different stamp. Their seamanship has been learned before the mast, in the rigging of windjammers rounding the Horn, where life is cheap and the food sea biscuits and salt horse. They know the far ports of the world as a cockney knows the streets of London; they look with contempt upon those well-fed seamen who are familiar only with their regular ports of call.
As Tod, this early morning, crossed the deck to the port alleyway leading to the galley, his steps faltered in trepidation. After his encounter with the first mate the night before, he was now prepared for any eventuality when he became mess boy to the strange being who was cook aboard the Araby. He was in for it now!
The galley door was open; a light burning within showed a gigantic shadow passing across the doorway. Tod stopped on the threshold. The Tattooed Man bent above the ship's range making the fire. He was clothed in blue pants and a jumper, and when he turned, the boy saw that it lay open upon his shaggy, powerful chest.
" 'Bout time ye're here," he greeted. "After this ye start the fire—see?" He closed the lid with a bang.
"Yes, sir," Tod said meekly.
The cook flushed. In amazement, Tod saw the red creep up the broad neck to his cheeks. The light-blue eyes above the high cheek bones, which gave the man a strange Tartar look, shone pale and stricken in the light.
"Gut me, if I'll have you call me 'sir,' " he growled. He swung about and rattled the pots on the stove. "I'm the cook—and a damned good cook too!"