When Gunning came aft, he was so ashamed of himself that I let him go, and he picked a mate from one of the quartermasters of the watch, while I turned the old fellow to as a landsman.  This had no effect on his loquacity, however, for he never lost an opportunity for telling a sad yarn full of the woes of this life and the anticipated ones in the world to come.  He had drank much and thought little, except of his own sorrows and ill luck, but as his yearnings for sympathy did no harm, he was seldom repressed.

We were three months out before we struck into the rains to the southward of the line, so there was an accumulation of dirty clothes aboard that would have filled the heart of a laundress with joy—­or horror.

The Pirate was running close on her water, for the port tank had sprung a leak, and there was no condenser aboard.  The allowance had been set at two quarts per day for each man.  This was barely enough to satisfy ordinary thirst and no more.

For the first day or two we made good headway into the squally belt.  The heavy, black, and dangerous-looking clouds would come along about every half-hour, just fast enough to keep the men busy clewing down and hoisting the lighter canvas nearly all day long, for some would have a puff of wind ahead of them and some a puff behind, making it all guesswork as to how hard it would strike.

After the second day we had the doldrums fair enough, and there we lay with our courses clewed up and our t’gallantsails wearing out with the continuous slatting, as the ship rolled lazily on the long, easy equatorial sea.  She was heading all around the compass, for there was not enough air to give her steering way; so, after dinner, all hands were allowed to turn out their outfits on the main deck for a grand wash.  When we were under one of those squall-clouds, the water would fall so heavily that it would be ankle deep in the waist in spite of the half-dozen five-inch scuppers spouting full streams out at both sides.  The waterfall was enough to take away the breath, standing in it, but all hands turned out stripped to the waist.  The scuppers were plugged, and soon the waist of the ship, about forty feet wide and sixty long, looked like a miniature lake with the after-hatch rising like a snow-white island from the centre, and upon which a miniature surf broke as the water swashed and swirled with each roll of the ship.  Here were hundreds of gallons of excellent water to wash in, and blankets, jumpers, flannels, etc., were soon floating at will, while the men seized whatever of their belongings they could lay hands on, and rubbed piece after piece with soap.  The large pieces, such as blankets, were hauled into the shallows forward, where the ship’s sheer made a gently sloping beach.  Then they were smeared with soap and laid just awash, while the men would slide along them in their bare feet as though on ice, squeezing out great quantities of dirty suds.  Afterwards they would be cast adrift in the deep water to rinse.