“I say, you young cub down there,” shouted the skipper to him from the hatchway, “come up and swab this deck.”

He got up, and after bruising himself severely, as he stumbled about to find the ladder, made an effort to obey the command.  But he staggered from feebleness when he reached the deck, and had to grasp for some fresh support at every step.

“None of that ’ere slobbering and shamming, Bill.  Why, d——­ you, what d’ye think you’re here for, eh?  You swab the deck, and in five minutes, or I’ll teach you, and be d——­d.”

Sick as death, Eric slowly obeyed, but did not get through his task without many blows and curses.  He felt very ill—­he had no means of washing or cleaning himself; no brush, or comb, or soap, or clean linen; and even his sleep seemed unrefreshful when the waking brought no change in his condition.  And then the whole life of the ship was odious to him.  His sense of refinement was exquisitely keen, and now to be called Bill, and kicked and cuffed about by these gross-minded men, and to hear their rough, coarse, drunken talk, and sometimes endure their still, more intolerable familiarities, filled him with deeply-seated loathing.

His whole soul rebelled and revolted from them all, and, seeing his fastidious pride, not one of them showed him the least glimpse of open kindness, though he observed that one of them did seem to pity him in heart.

Things grew worse and worse.  The perils which he had to endure at first, when ordered about the rigging, were what affected him least; he longed for death, and often contemplated flinging himself into those cold deep waves which he gazed on daily over the vessel’s side.  Hope was the only thing which supported him.  He had heard from one of the crew that the vessel would be back in not more than six weeks, and he made a deeply seated resolve to escape the very first day that they again anchored in an English harbor.

The homeward voyage was even more intolerable, for the cattle on board greatly increased the amount of necessary menial and disgusting work which fell to his snare, as well as made the atmosphere of the close little schooner twice as poisonous as before.  And to add to his miseries, his relations with the crew got more and more unfavorable, and began to reach their climax.

One night the sailor who occupied the hammock next to his heard him winding up his watch.  This he always did in the dark, as secretly and silently as he could, and never looked at it, except when no one could observe him; while, during the day, he kept both watch and chain concealed in his trousers.

Next morning the man made proposals to him to sell the watch, and tried by every species of threat and promise to extort it from him.  But the watch had been his mother’s gift, and he was resolute never to part with it into such hands.

“Very well, you young shaver, I shall tell the skipper and he’ll soon get it out of you as your footing, depend on it.”