Honor of Thieves by Cutcliffe Hyne — Read

Another day and another sky. Now the blue Gulf waters were as leaden and dense as that one looks upon in a hard North Sea gale; and the heavens overhead were full of lurid grays which raced one another in sliding chase till they were lost in the northern mist drifts. The steamer rolled heavily to a steep beam sea; and when it could be seen, the iron of her lower decks, forward and aft, gleamed as though it had been new-coated with ocher varnish. But this was not often, for four minutes out of every five the decks were filled with a clamoring, hissing pond of green and cotton-white, which the scuppers could only empty piecemeal.

The time was evening-twenty hours after the quelling of the mutiny, and the three tenants of the upper bridge were the only human beings on any of the outer decks. On the midship grating stood a high-heeled quartermaster holding on to the spokes of the steam wheel, browsing on plug tobacco, and keeping his eyes mechanically fixed on the jumping compass card. Alternately climbing and descending athwartships as the bridge swung under him, the third mate took his sea constitutional in rubber thigh-boots, with hands thrust into the waistbelt of his breeches. As officer of the watch, every time he passed the binnacle he faced front and took a regulation peer round the foggy line of horizon, with an utter lack of interest. He was an elderly man, the third mate, and the sea held no more surprises for him, and no more interest, and no more pleasures. If ever he had ambition, he had lost it years since.