"And you think, Bill, the skipper's goin' to bring off some more hands like us?"
"I don't think nothin' about it, Jem Backstay. When the cap'en tells me it's all right, I knows it's all right; and that's enough for me! Heave an eye out to starboard, mate; ain't that a light on shore, like a signal or something?"
"Ay, ay!" replied the other, drawing himself up to all the height of his six feet, and stretching out his brawny arms lazily as he peered over the bows through the hazy light, for the sun had just set, and the shore could only be faintly distinguished in the distance. "Aye, aye, my hearty! A light it is for certain."
"Then it's the cap'en, sure!" said Bill; "he's late to-night. I hope we'll start our anchor at last; I'm tired o' this Canton River."
"Foc's'le, ahoy!" at the same moment shouted out Mr Scuppers, the first mate, from the poop, where he was pacing to and fro with young Jack Harper, the midshipman.
"Aye, aye, sir!" shouted out in answer Bill and Jem together.
"You are awake, are you? I thought you were all asleep! Hoist up a lantern at the fore, to show the cap'en where we are, it's getting quite dark; and see if that Snowball's asleep in the galley; tell him it's six bells, and time for my coffee."
The negro cook, however, was awake for a wonder, and heard the mate's message, thus saving the trouble of its being repeated to him.
"Yah, yah! me no sleep, Massa Scuppers," he called out with that cheerful good humour that seems characteristic of the darky race, and which seems proof against any ill treatment;--"me jus' goin' brin' coffee, sah, yes sah! It am lubly hot, massa, and 'trong as carthoss!"
"Hot and strong is it, Snowball?" said the first mate in his hearty, jolly way, as the darky cook stepped gingerly past the group of Lascars, and handed the cup of coffee up to him on the poop, with an obsequious bow. "But, how is it you're not asleep?"
"Best to be most circumspectious, massa, wid dem culled pussons aboard; no caulking wid dem nasty yaller gen'lemen for me!"
"Well, that's a good un!" laughed Mr Scuppers; "the pot calling the kettle black with a vengeance!"
"You mistake sah," said Snowball with dignity. "I knows, Massa Scuppers, I isn't 'xactly like you white gen'lemen; but den I isn't a nasty mulatto like dem poor trash; and dey isn't to be trusted!"