I awoke gasping to the shock of cold water and was dimly aware of divers people crowding about me.
"'Tis a fine, bull-bodied boy, Job, all brawn and beef--witness your eye, Lord love me!" exclaimed a jovial voice, "Aha, Job, a lusty lad--heave t'other bucket over him!" There came another torrent of water, whereupon I strove to sit up, but finding this vain by reason of strict bonds, I cursed them all and sundry instead.
"A sturdy soul, Job, and of a comfortable conversation!" quoth the voice. "Moreover a man o' mark, as witnesseth your peeper."
"Rot him!" growled the man Job, a beastly-seeming fellow, very slovenly and foul of person, who glared down at me out of one eye, the other being so bruised and swollen as to serve him no whit.
"He should be overside wi' his guts full o' shot for this same heye of mine if 'twas my say--"
"But then it ain't your say, Job, nor yet Belvedere's--'tis hern, Job--hern--Cap'n Jo's. 'He's to be took care of,' says she, 'treated kind and gentle,' says she. And, mark me, here's Belvedere's nose out o' joint, d'ye see? And, talkin' o' noses, there's your eye, Job; sink me but he wiped your eye for you, my--"
"Plague and perish him!" snarled Job, kicking me viciously. "Burn him, 'tis keelhaul 'im I would first and then give 'im to Pompey to carve up what remained--"
"Pompey?" exclaimed this fellow Diccon, a merry-seeming fellow but with a truculent eye. "Look 'ee, Job, here's a match for Pompey at last, as I do think, man to man, bare fists or knives, a match and I'll lay to't."
"Pshaw!" growled Job. "Pompey could eat 'im--bones and all, curse 'im! Pompey would break 'is back as 'e did the big Spaniard's last week."
"Nay, Job, this fellow should make better fight for't than did the Spanisher. Look 'ee now, match 'em, and I'll lay all my share o' the voyage on this fellow, come now!"
"A match? Why so I would, but what o' Belvedere?"
"He sulketh, Job, and yonder he cometh, a-sucking of his thumb and all along o' this fellow and our Jo. Joanna's cocked her eye on this fellow and Belvedere's cake's dough--see him yonder!"
Now following the speaker's look, I perceived Captain Belvedere descending the quarter-ladder, his handsome face very evil and scowling; spying me where I lay, he came striding up and folding his arms, stood looking over me silently awhile.
"Lord love me!" he exclaimed at last in huge disgust and spat upon me. "Aft with him--to the coach--"
"Coach, Cap'n?" questioned Job, staring. "And why theer?"