Many Cargoes

“‘Nother invalid,’ ses he; ‘fust mate’s gone stark, staring mad!’

“‘Mad?’ ses I.

“‘Yes,’ ses he. ‘He’s got a big basin in the galley, an’ he’s laughing like a hyener an’ mixing bilge-water an’ ink, an’ paraffin an’ butter an’ soap an’ all sorts o’ things up together. The smell’s enough to kill a man; I’ve had to come away.’

“Curious-like, I jest walked up to the galley an’ puts my ‘ed in, an’ there was the mate as the cook said, smiling all over his face, and ladling some thick sticky stuff into a stone bottle.

“‘How’s the pore sufferers, sir?’ ses he, stepping out of the galley jest as the skipper was going by.

“‘They’re very bad; but I hope for the best,” ses the skipper, looking at him hard. ‘I’m glad to see you’ve turned a bit more feeling.’

“‘Yes, sir,’ ses the mate. ‘I didn’t think so at fust, but I can see now them chaps is all very ill. You’ll s’cuse me saying it, but I don’t quite approve of your treatment.’

“I thought the skipper would ha’ bust.

“‘My treatment?’ ses he. ‘My treatment? What do you know about it?’

“‘You’re treating ‘em wrong, sir,’ ses the mate. ‘I have here’ (patting the jar) ‘a remedy which ‘ud cure them all if you’d only let me try it.’

“‘Pooh!’ ses the skipper. ‘One medicine cure all diseases! The old story. What is it? Where’d you get it from?’ ses he.

“‘I brought the ingredients aboard with me,’ ses the mate. ‘It’s a wonderful medicine discovered by my grandmother, an’ if I might only try it I’d thoroughly cure them pore chaps.’

“‘Rubbish!’ ses the skipper.

“‘Very well, sir,’ ses the mate, shrugging his shoulders. ‘O’ course, if you won’t let me you won’t. Still I tell you, if you’d let me try I’d cure ‘em all in two days. That’s a fair challenge.’

“Well, they talked, and talked, and talked, until at last the skipper give way and went down below with the mate, and told the chaps they was to take the new medicine for two days, jest to prove the mate was wrong.

“‘Let pore old Dan try it first, sir,’ ses Harry, starting up, an’ sniffing as the mate took the cork out; ‘he’s been awful bad since you’ve been away.’

“‘Harry’s worse than I am, sir,’ ses Dan; ‘it’s only his kind heart that makes him say that.’

“‘It don’t matter which is fust,’ ses the mate, filling a tablespoon with it, ‘there’s plenty for all. Now, Harry.’

“‘Take it,’ ses the skipper.

“Harry took it, an’ the fuss he made you’d ha’ thought he was swallering a football. It stuck all round his mouth, and he carried on so dredful that the other invalids was half sick afore it came to them.

“By the time the other three ‘ad ‘ad theirs it was as good as a pantermime, an’ the mate corked the bottle up, and went an’ sat down on a locker while they tried to rinse their mouths out with the luxuries which had been given ‘em.

“‘How do you feel?’ ses the skipper.

“‘I’m dying,’ ses Dan.

“‘So’m I,’ ses Harry; ‘I b’leeve the mate’s pisoned us.”

“The skipper looks over at the mate very stern an’ shakes his ‘ed slowly.

“‘It’s all right,’ ses the mate. ‘It’s always like that the first dozen or so doses.’

“‘Dozen or so doses!’ ses old Dan, in a far-away voice.

“‘It has to be taken every twenty minutes,’ ses the mate, pulling out his pipe and lighting it; an’ the four men groaned all together.

“‘I can’t allow it,’ ses the skipper, ‘I can’t allow it. Men’s lives mustn’t be sacrificed for an experiment.’

“‘’T ain’t a experiment,’ ses the mate very indignant, ‘it’s an old family medicine.’

“‘Well, they shan’t have any more,’ ses the skipper firmly.

“‘Look here,’ ses the mate. ‘If I kill any one o’ these men I’ll give you twenty pound. Honour bright, I will.’

“‘Make it twenty-five,’ ses the skipper, considering.

“‘Very good,’ ses the mate. ‘Twenty-five; I can’t say no fairer than that, can I? It’s about time for another dose now.’

“He gave ‘em another tablespoonful all round as the skipper left, an’ the chaps what wasn’t invalids nearly bust with joy. He wouldn’t let ‘em have anything to take the taste out, ‘cos he said it didn’t give the medicine a chance, an’ he told us other chaps to remove the temptation, an’ you bet we did.

“After the fifth dose, the invalids began to get desperate, an’ when they heard they’d got to be woke up every twenty minutes through the night to take the stuff, they sort o’ give up. Old Dan said he felt a gentle glow stealing over him and strengthening him, and Harry said that it felt like a healing balm to his lungs. All of ‘em agreed it was a wonderful sort o’ medicine, an’ arter the sixth dose the man with paralysis dashed up on deck, and ran up the rigging like a cat. He sat there for hours spitting, an’ swore he’d brain anybody who interrupted him, an’ arter a little while Mike Rafferty went up and j’ined him, an’ it the fust mate’s ears didn’t burn by reason of the things them two pore sufferers said about ‘im, they ought to.

“They was all doing full work next day, an’ though, o’course, the skipper saw how he’d been done, he didn’t allude to it. Not in words, that is; but when a man tries to make four chaps do the work of eight, an’ hits ‘em when they don’t, it’s a easy job to see where the shoe pinches.”

A LOVE PASSAGE

The mate was leaning against the side of the schooner, idly watching a few red-coated linesmen lounging on the Tower Quay. Careful mariners were getting out their side-lights, and careless lightermen were progressing by easy bumps from craft to craft on their way up the river. A tug, half burying itself in its own swell, rushed panting by, and a faint scream came from aboard an approaching skiff as it tossed in the wash.

“JESSICA ahoy!” bawled a voice from the skiff as she came rapidly alongside.

The mate, roused from his reverie, mechanically caught the line and made it fast, moving with alacrity as he saw that the captain’s daughter was one of the occupants. Before he had got over his surprise she was on deck with her boxes, and the captain was paying off the watermen.

“You’ve seen my daughter Hetty afore, haven’t you?” said the skipper. “She’s coming with us this trip. You’d better go down and make up her bed, Jack, in that spare bunk.”

“Ay, ay,” said the mate dutifully, moving off.

“Thank you, I’ll do it myself,” said the scandalised Hetty, stepping forward hastily.

“As you please,” said the skipper, leading the way below. “Let’s have a light on, Jack.”

The mate struck a match on his boot, and lit the lamp.

“There’s a few things in there’ll want moving,” said the skipper, as he opened the door. “I don’t know where we’re to keep the onions now, Jack.”

“We’ll find a place for ‘em,” said the mate confidently, as he drew out a sack and placed it on the table.

“I’m not going to sleep in there,” said the visitor decidedly, as she peered in. “Ugh! there’s a beetle. Ugh!”

“It’s quite dead,” said the mate reassuringly. “I’ve never seen a live beetle on this ship.”