ying to `carry on' all he
could from the time the vessel left the Mersey, working the hands to
death, as they imagined, unnecessarily in tacking and beating about in
his attempt to make a fair wind out of a foul one, instead of waiting
more sensibly for a more favourable breeze, such as might reasonably be
expected in another day or two at most--judging by those signs sailors
know so well, as do farmers, but which are inexplainable according to
any natural meteorological laws--the hands now thought, on being so
suddenly summoned again on deck, and forced to leave their untasted meal
just as they were in the very act, so to speak, of putting it into their
mouths, and with its tantalising taste and smell vexing them all the
more, that the `old man' only roused them out again from sheer malice
and devilry, to make another fresh tack or short board, with the object
of `hazing' or driving them, as only slaves and sailors can be driven in
these days by a brutal captain and hard taskmaster!

This it was that made them loth to leave their snug and warm fo'c's'le,
filled as it was with the grateful odour of the appetising lobscouse
which Sam Jedfoot, the negro cook, a great favourite with the crew by
reason of his careful attention to their creature comforts, had so
thoughtfully compounded for them; and thus it was that they crawled up
the hatchway from below so laggardly, in response to the second-mate's
pleading order and Captain Snaggs second stentorian hail, as if they
were ascending a mountain, and each man had a couple of half-hundred
weights tied to his legs, so as to make his movements the slower.

"Hoo-ry oop, mans!" cried the second-mate, in his queer foreign lingo.
"Hoo-ry oop, or you vill have ze skipper after yous! He vas look as if
he vas comin' down ze poop ladder joost now!"

"Durn the skipper! He ain't got no more feelin' in his old carkiss than
a Rock Island clam!" muttered the leading man of the disturbed watch, as
he stepped out over the coaming of the hatchway on to the deck, as
leisurely as if he were executing a step in the sword dance; but, the
next moment, as his eye took in the position of the ship and the scene
around, the wind catching him at the moment, and almost knocking him
backwards down the hatchway, as it met him full butt, he made a dash for
the weather rigging, shouting out to his companions behind, who were
coming up out of the fo'c's'le just as slowly as he had done: "Look
alive, mates!