The man had such
a mild face and such a mild manner!
"Well, Kipping, you go about your work, and after this, let me warn you,
keep busy and keep a civil tongue in your head. We'll have no slick tricks
aboard this ship, and the sooner you men realize it, the easier it will be
for all hands."
Turning, the mate went back to the quarter-deck and resumed his station by
the weather rail.
While his back was toward us, however, and just as I myself, who had
listened, all ears, to the exchange of words between them, was turning to
the forecastle, I saw--or thought I saw--on Kipping's almost averted face
just such a leer as I had seen him cast at the captain, followed, I could
have taken my oath, by a shameless wink. When he noticed me gazing at him,
open-mouthed, he gave me such another cold stare as he had given me before
and, muttering something under his breath, walked away.
I looked aft to discover at whom he could have winked, but I saw only the
second mate, who scowled at me angrily.
"Now what," thought I, "can all this mean?" Then, being unable to make
anything of it, I forgot it and devoted myself industriously to my own
affairs until the hoarse call of "All hands on deck" brought the men who
were below tumbling up, to be summoned aft and addressed by the captain.
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