“Everything is all ready, as I see,” the captain continued.  “So I’ll go to bed awhile until my things come aboard.  This young man will be third mate, Mr. Trunnell, and I’ll put him under your care.  He will go ashore now and see to the trunks.  But let me know the minute the crew come down, for I won’t wait for anything after that.  You can let the tug take the line and be ready to pull us out.”

Then the skipper went into the captain’s cabin, and we saw him no more for several hours.  The young man went back up town, and half an hour later returned with a cab containing a trunk, which was put in the after-cabin.  The skipper heard the noise and bade them not reawaken him under any circumstances until the ship was well out at sea.

“If I have to get up and see to our leaving, some one will be sorry for it,” he said, in his menacing voice, and Mr. Trunnell was quite content to leave him alone.

At five in the morning the boarding master brought down the men, and a sorry lot of sailors they were.  They counted nineteen all told, and half of them could not speak English.  I went among them and searched their dunnage for liquor and weapons, and after finding plenty of both, I bundled the entire outfit into the forecastle and let them sort it the best they could, with the result that they all struck a fair average in the way of clothes.  Those who were too drunk to be of any use I let alone, and they made a dirty mess of the clean forecastle.  The rest I turned to with some energy and soon had our towing gear overhauled.

There was now a considerable crowd collecting on the dock to watch the ship clear, and as it was still too dark to see objects distinctly, I couldn’t tell what was taking place in the waist, for I had to attend sharply to the work on the topgallant forecastle.  Mr. Trunnell bawled for the tug to pull away, and the ship started to leave the dock.

At that instant a man rushed through the crowd and sprang upon the rail amidships, where, seizing some of the running rigging, he let himself down to the main deck.  He looked aft at Mr. Trunnell, and then seeing that the mate had command of the ship, he looked into the forward cabin and came to where I stood bawling out orders to the men who were passing the tow-line outside the rigging.  I called to him and asked who he was and what he wanted, and he told me quickly that he was the twentieth man of the crew and had almost got left.

“What?” I asked; “after getting your advance money?” And I smiled as I thought of his chance of getting away without being caught.

“I never welsh, sir,” he replied, “and as I signed on, so will I work.  I never skinned a ship yet out of sixpence.”

“Most remarkable,” I sneered; but the fellow had such a frank, open face that I felt sorry afterward.  He was a young man and had probably not learned enough about ships to have such delicate scruples.  He had a smooth face and looked intelligent, although it was evident that he was not much of a sailor.