The Island Treasure. John C. Hutcheson

“Thet swab of a Britisher boy,” so opprobriously designated by the first-mate as having been “fetched aboard at Liverpool” by the captain, as if he were the sweepings of the gutter, was really no less a personage, if I may be allowed to use that term, than myself, the narrator of the following strange story.

I happened, as luck would have it, to be standing just at his elbow when he made the remark, having come up the companion way from the cabin below the poop by the steward’s directions to tell Captain Snaggs that his dinner was ready; and, as may be imagined, I was mightily pleased with his complimentary language, although wondering that he gave me the credit of pulling and hauling with the others in taking in sail on ‘all hands’ being summoned, when every idler on board ship, as I had learnt in a previous voyage to New York and back, is supposed to help the rest of the crew; and so, of course, I lent my little aid too, doing as much as a boy could, as Mr. Jefferson Flinders, the captain’s toady and fellow bully, although he only played second fiddle in that line when the skipper was on deck, could have seen for himself with half an eye.

Oh, yes, I heard what he said; and I believe he not only called me a ‘swab,’ but an ‘ugly’ one as well!

Indeed, I heard everything, pretty nearly everything, that is, and was able to see most of what occurred from the time when we were off the Tuskar Light until Captain Snaggs hailed the cook to come aft; for I was in and out of the cuddy and under the break of the poop all the while, except now that I went up the companion, and stood by the booby hatch over it, waiting for the captain to turn round, so that I could give him the steward’s message.

But the skipper wasn’t in any hurry to turn round at first, sticking there grasping the rail tightly, and working himself up into a regular fury because poor Sam didn’t jump out of his galley at the sound of his voice and answer his summons; when, if he’d reflected, he would have known that the wind carried away his threatening words to leeward, preventing them from reaching the negro cook’s ears, albeit these were as big and broad as the bell-mouth of a speaking trumpet.

The captain, though, did not think of this.

Not he; and, naturally, not recognising the reason for the negro’s non-appearance immediately on his calling him, he became all the more angry and excited.

“Sam—Sambo—Sam Jedfoot!” he roared, raising his shrill voice a pitch higher in each case, as he thus successively rang the changes on the cook’s name in his queer way, making the first-mate snigger behind him, and even I could not help laughing, the captain spoke so funnily through his nose; while Jan Steenbock, the second-mate, who was standing by the mainmast bitts, I could see, had a grim smile on his face. “Sam, ye scoundrel! Come aft hyar at once when I hail, or by thunder I’ll keelhaul ye, ez safe ez my name’s Ephraim O Snaggs!”

The bathos of this peroration was too much for Jan Steenbock, and he burst into a loud “ho! ho!”

It was the last straw that broke the camel’s—I mean the captain’s—back, and he got as mad as a hatter.

“Ye durned Dutch skunk!” he flamed out, the red veins cross-hatching his face in his passion. “What the blue blazes d’ye mean by makin’ fun o’ yer cap’n? Snakes an’ alligators, I’ll disrate ye—I’ll send ye forrud; I’ll—I’ll—”

“I vas not means no harms, cap’n,” apologised the other, on the skipper stopping in his outburst for want of breath, the words appearing to be choking in his mouth, coming out too quick for utterance, so that they all got jumbled together. “I vas hab no bad respect of yous, sare. I vas only lafs mit meinselfs.”

“Then I’d kinder hev ye ter know, Mister Steenbock, thet ye’d better not laugh with yerself nor nary a body else when I’m on the poop,” retorted Captain Snaggs, not believing a word of this lucid explanation, although he did not seemingly like to tell him so, and quarrel right out. “I guess though, as ye’re so precious merry, ye might hev a pull taken at thet lee mainbrace. If ye wer anything of a seaman ye’d hev done it without me telling ye!”

Having administered this ‘flea in the ear’ to the second-mate, the captain turned round abruptly on his heel, with a muttered objurgation, having some reference to Jan Steenbock’s eyes; and, as he looked aft, he caught sight of me.

“Jee-rusalem, b’y!” he exclaimed; “what in thunder air ye doin’ hyar? The poop ain’t no place fur cabin b’ys, I reckon.”

“The steward sent me up, sir,” I replied, trembling;

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