which the rest of the passengers took their places, and the looks of inquiry and doubt they cast at those who seated themselves next to them. For a time the meal was a silent one, friends talking together in low voices, but nothing like a general conversation being attempted. At the first officers' end of the table, however, the sound of conversation and laughter began at once.
"Have you room, Miss Renshaw? or do you already begin to regret your bargain?"
"I have plenty of room, thank you," Marion replied. "I hope that you have enough?"
"Plenty," Mr. Atherton answered. "I have just been telling your brother that if he finds I am squeezing him he must run his elbow into my ribs. Let me see, Mr. Ryan; it must be three years since we sat together."
"Just about that," the mate replied with a strong Irish accent. "You went with us from Japan to Singapore, did you not?"
"That was it, and a rough bout we had of it in that cyclone in the China Seas. You remember that I saved the ship then?"
"How was that, Mr. Atherton?" Wilfrid asked.
The first officer laughed. "Mr. Atherton always took a deal more credit to himself than we gave him. When the cyclone struck the ship and knocked her right down on her beam-ends, he happened to be sitting up to windward, and he always declared that if it hadn't been for his weight the ship would never have righted itself."
There was a general laugh at the mate's explanation.
"I always plant myself to windward in a gale," Mr. Atherton said gravely. "Shifting ballast is a most useful thing, although they have abolished it in yacht-racing. I was once in a canoe, down by Borneo, when a heavy squall struck us. I was sitting in the bottom of the boat when we saw it coming, and had just time to get up and sit on the weather gunwale when it struck us. If it had not been for me nothing could have saved the boat from capsizing. As it was it stood up as stiff as a rock, though, I own, I nearly drowned them all when the blow was over, for it stopped as suddenly as it began, and the boat as nearly as possible capsized with my weight. Indeed it would have done so altogether if it hadn't heeled over so sharply that I was chucked backwards into the sea. Fortunately the helmsman made a grab at me as I went past, and I managed to scramble on board again. Not that I should have sunk for I can float like a cork; but there are a good many sharks cruising about in those waters, and it is safer inside a boat than it is out. You see, Miss Renshaw, there are advantages in being stout. I should not wonder if your brother got just my size one day. My figure was very much like his once."
"Oh, I hope not!" Marion exclaimed. "That would be dreadful! No; I don't mean that," she went on hurriedly as Mr. Atherton's face assumed an expression of shocked surprise. "I mean that, although of course there may be many advantages in being stout, there are advantages in being thin too."
"I admit that," Mr. Atherton agreed; "but look at the disadvantages. A stout man escapes being sent trotted about on messages. Nobody would think of asking him to climb a ladder. He is not expected to dance. The thin man is squeezed into any odd corner; and is not treated with half the consideration that is given to a fat man. He worries about trifles, and has none of the quiet contentment that characterizes stout people. A stout man's food always agrees with him, or else he would not be stout; while the thin man suffers indigestion, dyspepsia, and perhaps jaundice. You see, my dear young lady, that almost all the advantages are on our side. Of course you will say I could not climb a ladder, but then I do not want to climb a ladder. I could not make the ascent of Matterhorn; but it is much more pleasant to sit at the bottom and see fools do it. I could not very well ride a horse unless it were a dray-horse; but then I have no partiality for horse exercise. Altogether I think I have every reason to be content. I can travel wherever I like, see whatever I want to see, and enjoy most of the good things of life."
"And hould your own in a scrimmage," Mr. Ryan put in laughing. "I can answer for that."
"If I am pushed to it," Mr. Atherton said modestly, "of course I try to do my best."
"Have you seen Mr. Atherton in a scrimmage?" Tom Allen asked the mate.
"I have; and a sharp one it was while it lasted."
"There is no occasion to say anything about it, Ryan," Mr. Atherton said hastily.
"But no reason in life why I should not," the mate replied. "What do you say, ladies and gentleman?"
There was a chorus of "Go on please, do let us hear about it," and he continued:
"I don't give Mr. Atherton the credit of saving our ship in the squall, but it would have gone badly with us if he hadn't taken part in the row we had. You see, we had a mixed crew on board, for the most part Chinamen and a few Lascars; for we were three years in the China Seas, and English sailors cannot well stand the heat out there, and besides don't like remaining in ships stopping there trading. So when, after we arrived at Shanghai, we got orders to stop and trade out there, most of them took their discharge, and we filled up with natives. Coming down from Japan that voyage there was a row. I forget what their pretext was now, but I have no doubt it was an arranged thing, and that they intended to take the ship and run her ashore on some of the islands, take what they fancied out of her, and make off in boats, or perhaps take her into one of those nests of pirates that abound among the islands.
"They felt so certain of overpowering us, for there were only the three officers, the boatswain, and two cabin passengers, that instead of rising by night, when they would no doubt have succeeded, they broke into mutiny at dinner-time – came aft in a body, clamouring that their food was unfit to eat. Then suddenly drawing weapons from beneath their clothes they rushed up the gangways on to the poop; and as none of us were armed, and had no idea of what was going to take place, they would have cut us down almost without resistance had it not been for our friend here. He was standing just at the top of the poop ladder when they came up, headed by their seraing. Mr. Atherton knocked the scoundrel down with a blow of his fist, and then, catching him by the ankles, whirled him round his head like a club and knocked the fellows down like ninepins as they swarmed up the gangway, armed with knives and creases.
"The captain, who was down below, had slammed and fastened the door opening on to the waist on seeing the fellows coming aft, and handed up to us through the skylight some loaded muskets, and managed, by standing on the table and taking our hands, to get up himself. Then we opened fire upon them, and in a very few minutes drove them down. We shot six of them. The seraing of course was killed, four of the others had their skulls fairly broken in by the blows that they had received, and five were knocked senseless. We chucked them down the hatchway to the others, had up four or five of the men to work the ship, and kept the rest fastened below until we got to Singapore and handed them over to the authorities. They all got long terms of penal servitude. Anyhow, Mr. Atherton saved our lives and the ship, so I think you will agree with me that he can hold his own in a scrimmage."
"It was very hot work," Mr. Atherton said with a laugh, "and I did not get cool again for two or three days afterwards. The idea of using a man as a club was not my own. Belzoni put down a riot among his Arab labourers, when he was excavating ruins somewhere out in Syria, I think it was, by knocking the ringleader down and using him as a club. I had been reading the book not long before, and it flashed across my mind as the seraing went down that he might be utilized. Fists are all very well, but when you have got fellows to deal with armed with knives and other cutting instruments it is better to keep them at a distance if you can."
"That was splendid!" Wilfrid exclaimed. "How I should like to have seen it!"
"It was good for the eyes," the mate said; "and bate Donnybrook entirely. Such a yelling and shouting as the yellow reptiles made you never heard."
By this time the meal was finished, and the passengers repaired on deck to find that the ship was just passing Sheerness.
