ou leave her?"
"'Bout 'leven days." "Captain's name?" "Flahy." "That'll do. Next man:
Jules Anderson." Jules Anderson is a Dane. His statements tally with the
discharge-certificate of the United States, as the Eagle attesteth. He
is passed and falls back. Slivey, the Englishman, and David, a huge
plum-coloured negro who ships as cook, are also passed. Then comes
Bassompra, a little Italian, who speaks English. "What's your last
ship?" "_Ferdinand._" "No, after that?" "German barque." Bassompra does
not look happy. "When did she sail?" "About three weeks ago." "What's
her name?" "_Haidee._" "You deserted from her?" "Yes, but she's left
port." The "Deputy Shipping" runs rapidly through a shipping-list,
throws it down with a bang. "'Twon't do. No German barque _Haidee_ here
for three months. How do I know you don't belong to the _Jackson's_
crew? Cap'en, I'm afraid you'll have to ship another man. He must stand
over. Take the rest away and make 'em sign."

The bead-eyed Bassompra seems to have lost his chance of a voyage, and
his case will be inquired into. The captain departs with his men and
they sign articles for the voyage, while the "Deputy Shipping" tells
strange tales of the sailorman's life. "They'll quit a good ship for the
sake of a spree, and catch on again at three pound ten, and by Jove,
they'll let their skippers pay 'em at ten rupees to the sovereign--poor
beggars. As soon as the money's gone they'll ship, but not before. Every
one under rank of captain engages here. The competition makes
first-mates ship sometimes for five pounds or as low as four ten a
month." (The gentleman in the boarding-house was right, you see.) "A
first mate's wages are seven ten or eight, and foreign captains ship for
twelve pounds a month and bring their own small stores--everything, that
is to say, except beef, peas, flour, coffee, and molasses."

These things are not pleasant to listen to while the hungry-eyed men in
the bad clothes lounge and scratch and loaf behind the railing. What
comes to them in the end? They die, it seems, though that is not
altogether strange. They die at sea in strange and horrible ways; they
die, a few of them, in the Kintals, being lost and suffocated in the
great sink of Calcutta; they die, in strange places by the water-side,
and the Hugli takes them away under the mooring chains and the buoys,
and casts them up on the sands below, if the River Police have missed
the capture. They sail the sea becau