"Yes."

"You have had three guineas on account?" he went on, after a couple of
puffs to keep his pipe alight, as he looked into his ledger; "a month's
wages."

"No, sir," said Salvé, firmly, "I have had nothing on account,"--and he
proceeded then to relate the circumstances under which the supposed
payment had been made. "I have not been regularly engaged till this
moment, if I am so now; but up to this I have been treated like a dog,
and worse."

The captain took no notice of his last observation, and merely said
shortly and sternly--

"The three guineas are owing to him, boatswain Jenkins. His place will
be in the foretop. A steady hand will be wanted among all that rabble
there."

"Another time you'll perhaps play on your own account, and not on the
sailors'," he observed, turning to the boatswain; but Salvé caught the
remark.

With this the conference came to an end, the boatswain's expression
prophesying that when the opportunity offered Salvé should pay for his
triumph. He went about nursing his prominent chin, and twisting his
yellow whiskers, and found a victim for the present in a wretched
Mulatto, who was scouring for the cook. After first correcting him
sharply for nothing, he coolly felled him to the deck with a handspike,
and left him lying there unable to move.