“She’s weathered the storm and got into port, anyhow,” said Dennis, “and I suppose you think the best can do no more.  Eh?”

“Jes’ so, Dennis.”

Alfonso was not far wrong on the subject of grumbling.  It is one of a sailor’s few luxuries and privileges, and acts as safety-valve for heats of just and unjust indignation, which might otherwise come to dangerous explosion.  We three had really learned no mean amount of rough-and-ready seamanship by this time, and we had certainly practised the art of grumbling as well.  That “of all the dirty ill-found tubs,” the Slut was the worst we had ever known, our limited experience had made us safe in declaring, and we had also been voluble about the undue length of time during which we had been “humbugging about” between Halifax and New York.  But these by-gones we now willingly allowed to be by-gones, especially as we had had duff-pudding the day before, though it was not Sunday—­(Oh, Crayshaw’s! that I should have lived to find duff-pudding a treat—­but it is a pleasant change from salt meat),—­and as the captain had promised some repairs to the ship before we returned to Halifax.

We were not long in discovering that the promise was a safe one, for he did not mean to return to Halifax at all.  Gradually it leaked out, that when the salt fish was disposed of we were not going to take in ballast and go back, as we had thought, but to stow away a “general cargo” of cheap manufactured articles (chiefly hardware, toys, trumpery pictures, and looking-glasses) and proceed with them on a trading voyage “down south.”—­“West Indies,” said the carpenter.  “Bermuda for certain,” was another opinion; but Alfonso smiled and said, “Demerara.”

“Cap’n berry poor sailor, but berry good trader,” he informed us in confidence.  “Sell ’m stinking fish and buy gimcracks cheap; sell gimcracks dear to Portugee store in Georgetown, take in sugar—­berry good sugar, Demerara sugar—­and come back to New York.”

Alfonso had made the voyage before on these principles, and was all the more willing to believe that this was to be the programme, because he was—­at such uncertain intervals as his fate ordained—­courting a young lady of colour in Georgetown, Demerara.  I don’t think Dennis O’Moore could help sympathizing with people, and as a result of this good-natured weakness, he heard a great deal about that young lady of colour, and her genteel clothes, and how she played the piano, and belonged to the Baptist congregation.

“I’ve a cousin myself in Demerara, Alfonso,” said Dennis.

“Hope she’m kind to you, Dennis.  Hope you can trust her, ’specially if the members walks home with her after meeting.”  And Alfonso sighed.

But jokes were far too precious on board the Slut for Dennis to spoil this one by explaining that his cousin was a middle-aged gentleman in partnership with the owner of a sugar estate.