Hence all hands were thrown upon the ship's bread for two
days; and the badness of it, therefore, was made even more apparent
than heretofore, when its wormy moldiness was in some degree qualified
by the nauseousness of bad salt pork and beef and the sickly flavor of
damaged tea.
As I had anticipated, the captain came round a little a few hours after
his insulting attack upon me. I think his temper frightened him when
it had reference to me. Like others of his breed, he was a bit of a
cur at the bottom. My character was a trifle beyond him; and he was
ignorant enough to hate and fear what he could not understand. Be this
as it may, he made some rough attempts at a rude kind of politeness
when I went below to get some grog, and condescended to say that when I
had been to sea as long as he, I would know that the most ungrateful
rascals in the world were sailors; that every crew he had sailed with
had always taken care to invent some grievance to growl over: either
the provisions were bad, or the work too heavy, or the ship
unseaworthy; and that long ago he had made up his mind never to pay
attention to their complaints, since no sooner would one wrong be
redressed than another would be coined and shoved under his nose.
Pages:
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335