Chapter 17 - Page 2

oblique ind sullen eye, and then exchanged singularly
intelligent glances with his comrades, before he saw fit to make the
smallest motion towards compliance. But there was that, in the
authoritative mien of his superior, which finally induced him to comply.
The dilatory manner in which the seamen performed the duty was quickened,
however, as the rod ascended, and the well-known signs of a formidable
leak met their eyes. The experiment was repeated with greater activity,
and with far more precision.

"If witchcraft can clear the hold of a ship that is already half full of
water," said Nighthead, casting another sullen glance towards the
attentive Wilder "the sooner it is done the better; for the whole cunning
of something more than a bungler in the same will be needed, in order to
make the pumps of the 'Royal Caroline' suck!"

"Does the ship leak?" demanded his superior with a quickness of utterance
which sufficiently proclaimed how important he deemed the intelligence.

"Yesterday, I would have boldly put my name to the articles of any craft
that floats the ocean; and had the Captain asked me if I understood her
nature and character, as certain as that my name is Francis Nighthead, I
should have told him, yes. But I find that the oldest seaman may still
learn something of the water; though it should be got in crossing a ferry
in a flat."

"What mean you, sir?" demanded Wilder, who, for the first time, began to
note the mutinous looks assumed by his mate, no less than the threatening
manner in which he was seconded by the crew. "Have the pumps rigged
without delay, and clear the ship of the water."

Nighthead slowly complied with the former part of this order; and, in a
few moments, every thing was arranged to commence the necessary, and, as
it would seem, urgent duty of pumping. But no man lifted his hand to the
laborious employment. The quick eye of Wilder, who had now taken the
alarm, was not slow in detecting this reluctance; and he repeated the
order more sternly, calling to two of the seamen, by name, to set the
example of obedience. The men hesitated, giving an opportunity to the mate
to confirm them, by his voice, in their mutinous intentions.

"What need of hands to work a pump in a vessel like this?" he said, with
a coarse laugh, but in which secret terror struggled strangely with open
malice. "After what we have all seen this night, none here will be amazed,
should the vessel begin to spout out the brine like a breathing whale."

"What am I to understand by this hesitation, and by this language?" said
Wilder, approaching Nighthead with a firm step, and an eye too proud to
quail before the