I am too spent with running to go back with you," and the
mate of the Kincaid threw himself upon the ground, panting as though he was almost done for.
We sat down at once, and as I helped the chief
mate, I said:
Stubb was the second
mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man.
I met my
mates in the morning (I'll never meet them more!); They came and went in legions that darkened all the shore.
Already he had made the generalization that of the two, the captain was the superior god, giving many orders that the
mate obeyed.
These were always males, and they were pressingly insistent on joining with One Eye and his
mate. This he resented, and when she stood shoulder to shoulder with him, bristling and showing her teeth, the aspiring solitary ones would back off, turn-tail, and continue on their lonely way.
I told him I did not know his
mate Bill, and this was for a person who stayed in our house whom we called the captain.
"Alas!" he exclaimed, contemplating the melancholy result, "had I but chosen a
mate for myself with half the care that I did for my Dog I should now be a proud and happy father."
I found the poor men on board almost in a tumult to get the victuals out of the boiler before it was ready; but my
mate observed his orders, and kept a good guard at the cook-room door, and the man he placed there, after using all possible persuasion to have patience, kept them off by force; however, he caused some biscuit-cakes to be dipped in the pot, and softened with the liquor of the meat, which they called brewis, and gave them every one some to stay their stomachs, and told them it was for their own safety that he was obliged to give them but little at a time.
The
mate who, on account of his peculiar build, could not turn his head freely, twisted his thick trunk slightly, and ran his black eyes in the corners towards the steward.
First
mate angry, said it was folly, and to yield to such foolish ideas would demoralise the men, said he would engage to keep them out of trouble with the handspike.
And farmed it he had, for twenty years, shrewd, cool-headed, sober, industrious, and thrifty, rising from ship's boy and forecastle hand to
mate and master of sailing-ships and thence into steam, second officer, first, and master, from small command to larger, and at last to the bridge of the old Tryapsic--old, to be sure, but worth her fifty thousand pounds and still able to bear up in all seas, and weather her nine thousand tons of freight.