Hitchen was called to starboard, and the honors still remained about even in the contest of wit and experience, for both mates had studied the paces of each individual with critical eyes during that eventful day.
The next choice was a painful one. There was a short pause; it seemed to us that "Charlie Horse," who had once been mate on a coaster in the oyster trade, or Dago Tony, would surely be chosen next.
"Felix, come here," said the mate, running his eye over the Dago and Charlie, and lighting on me. I stepped over to the boys lined up on the lee side, a weight lifted from my mind, as Frenchy, destined to be my chum, moved near me.
It was getting on by then. Chips went aft carrying the side lights, and Captain Nichols was stumping the poop with some impatience, as a hint to his officers to bring things to a close.
The second mate chose Charlie, and George Krug, or "Scouse" as we called him, was taken by the mate. Dago Tony went to the second mate, and Fred Erricson, a good sailor, also an _Ettrick_ deserter, went to port.
Mike, the wood turner, went to starboard, and Joe Johnson, one time a cobbler's apprentice, and general all round husky favorite of misfortune, was taken by the mate.
The left-overs, Martin, and Peter the boy, were divided by the call of Peter to the starboard watch, and Martin fell to the mate. Peter, an American, ex-reporter on a Worcester paper, one time foreman in a corset factory, and a bright, wideawake boy of something over twenty-one, had shipped for eight dollars a month _and his health_. The voyage netted him his payday many times over, for he was endowed with brains and, starting out a wreck, he came back a toughhanded deepwater man.
It was close to six bells by that time. Chips had set out the running lights and was getting the big pump ready, having sounded the well and reported a foot of water.
"Starboard watch below for tucker!" ordered the mate; and then turning to the men of his watch, he ordered, "Man the pump!"
It was dark as we bent to the cranks of the big pump, and with the hum of wind and the swish of water in our ears we realized that we were truly at sea, insignificant mortals riding on the low deck of a vast fabric of wood and canvas, venturing far from land on the mighty stretches of the Western Ocean.