“Rose Budd is not yet nineteen, I have heard her say,” returned the mate, with emphasis.

“Youngish, I will own, but that’s a fault a liberal-minded man can overlook.  Every day, too, will lessen it.  Well, look to the cabins, and see all clear for a start.  Josh will be down presently with a cart-load of stores, and you’ll take ’em aboard without delay.”

As Spike uttered this order, his foot was on the plank-sheer of the bulwarks, in the act of passing to the wharf again.  On reaching the shore, he turned and looked intently at the revenue steamer, and his lips moved, as if he were secretly uttering maledictions on her.  We say maledictions, as the expression of his fierce ill-favoured countenance too plainly showed that they could not be blessings.  As for Mulford, there was still something on his mind, and he followed to the gangway ladder and ascended it, waiting for a moment when the mind of his commander might be less occupied to speak.  The opportunity soon occurred, Spike having satisfied himself with the second look at the steamer.

“I hope you don’t mean to sail again without a second mate, Capt.  Spike?” he said.

“I do though, I can tell you.  I hate Dickies—­they are always in the way, and the captain has to keep just as much of a watch with one as without one.”

“That will depend on his quality.  You and I have both been Dickies in our time, sir; and my time was not long ago.”

“Ay—­ay—­I know all about it—­but you didn’t stick to it long enough to get spoiled.  I would have no man aboard the Swash who made more than two v’y’ges as second officer.  As I want no spies aboard my craft, I’ll try it once more without a Dicky.”

Saying this in a sufficiently positive manner, Capt.  Stephen Spike rolled up the wharf, much as a ship goes off before the wind, now inclining to the right, and then again to the left.  The gait of the man would have proclaimed him a sea-dog, to any one acquainted with that animal, as far as he could be seen.  The short squab figure, the arms bent nearly at right angles at the elbow, and working like two fins with each roll of the body, the stumpy, solid legs, with the feet looking in the line of his course and kept wide apart, would all have contributed to the making up of such an opinion.  Accustomed as he was to this beautiful sight, Harry Mulford kept his eyes riveted on the retiring person of his commander, until it disappeared behind a pile of lumber, waddling always in the direction of the more thickly peopled parts of the town.  Then he turned and gazed at the steamer, which, by this time, had fairly passed the brig, and seemed to be actually bound through the Gate.  That steamer was certainly a noble-looking craft, but our young man fancied she struggled along through the water heavily.  She might be quick at need, but she did not promise as much by her present rate of moving.  Still, she was a noble-looking craft, and, as Mulford descended to the deck again, he almost regretted he did not belong to her; or, at least, to anything but the Molly Swash.