An old acquaintance of ours was out in that same gale, and is even now making his way into the shelter of the Albert docks. This was none other than the redoubtable Captain Hamilton Miggs, whose ship will persistently keep afloat, to the astonishment of the gallant captain himself, and of every one else who knows anything of her sea-going qualities. Again and again she had been on the point of foundering; and again and again some change in the weather or the steady pumping of the crew had prevented her from fulfilling her destiny. So surprised was the skipper at these repeated interpositions of Providence that he had quite made up his superstitious mind that the ship never would go down, and now devoted himself with a whole heart to his old occupation of drinking himself into delirium tremens and physicking himself out of it again.
The Black Eagle had a fair cargo aboard, and Miggs was proportionately jubilant. The drunken old sea-dog had taken a fancy to Tom's frank face and honest eyes, and greeted him with effusion when he came aboard next morning.
"Knock me asunder, but you look rosy, man!" he cried. "It's easy to see that you have not been lying off Fernando Po, or getting the land mist into your lungs in the Gaboon."
"You look well yourself, captain," said Tom.
"Tolerable, tolerable. Just a touch of the jumps at times."
"We can begin getting our cargo out, I suppose? I have a list here to check it. Will you have the hatches off at once?"
"No work for me," said Captain Hamilton Miggs with decision. "Here, Sandy--Sandy McPherson, start the cargo, will ye, and stir your great Scotch bones. I've done enough in bringing this sieve of a ship all the way from Africa, without working when I am in dock."
McPherson was the first mate, a tall, yellow-bearded Aberdonian. "I'll see t'it," he said shortly. "You can gang ashore or where you wull."
"The Cock and Cowslip," said the captain, "I say, you--Master Dimsdale--when you're done come up an' have a glass o' wine with me. I'm only a plain sailor man, but I'm damned if my heart ain't in the right place. You too, McPherson--you'll come up and show Mr. Dimsdale the way. Cock and Cowslip, corner o' Sextant Court." The two having accepted his invitation, the captain shuffled off across the gangway and on to terra firma.
All day Tom stood at the hatchway of the Black Eagle, checking the cargo as it was hoisted out of her, while McPherson and his motley assistants, dock labourers, seamen, and black Kroomen from the coast, worked and toiled in the depths below. The engine rattled and snorted, and the great chain clanked as it was lowered into the hold.