"Didn't I tell you?" he cried, appealing to us. "Didn't I tell you?"
"It might have been no laughing matter for us," the other remarked
petulantly. "I have lost a good sea-kit and nearly my life into the
bargain."
"Do I understand you to say," said I, "that you attribute your
misfortunes to your ill-fated passengers?"
The mate opened his eyes at the adjective.
"Why ill-fated, sir?" he asked.
"Because they are most certainly drowned," I answered.
He sniffed incredulously and went on warming his hands.
"Men of that kind are never drowned," he said, after a pause. "Their
father, the devil, looks after them. Did you see them standing on the
poop and rolling cigarettes at the time when the mizzen was carried away
and the quarter-boats stove? That was enough for me. I'm not surprised
at you landsmen not being able to take it in, but the captain here,
who's been sailing since he was the height of the binnacle, ought to
know by this time that a cat and a priest are the worst cargo you
can carry. If a Christian priest is bad, I guess an idolatrous pagan
one is fifty times worse. I stand by the old religion, and be d--d
to it!"
My father and I could not help laughing at the rough sailor's very
unorthodox way of proclaiming his orthodoxy. The mate, however, was
evidently in deadly earnest, and proceeded to state his case, marking
off the different points upon the rough, red fingers of his left hand.
"It was at Kurrachee, directly after they come that I warned ye," he
said reproachfully to the captain.
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