"Hand it up," said the captain, from whom every moment I was expecting an explosion of temper. He did not offer to taste the stuff, but inspected it with apparent attention, and tilted the vessel first this way and then that, that the treacle might run. "Here's your molasses," said he, handing down the pannikin. "What else is there?" "We're willin' to call this tea," said a man, holding up an earthenware jar filled with a black liquor; "but it ain't tea like what they sells ashore, an' it ain't tea like what I've bin used to drink on board other wessels. It's tea," continued he, looking first into the jar and then at the skipper, "and yet it ain't. Maybe it was growed in England, for there isn't no flavour of Chaney about it. It's too faint for 'bacca-leaves, and it ain't sweet enough for liquorish. Fish here says it's the mustiness as makes it taste like senna." Here followed a pause, during which the men gazed eagerly at the skipper. I noticed some angry and even sinister countenances among them; and the cook looked as evil as a fiend, with his hard yellow face and gleaming eyes staring upwards under his eyebrows. But so far there had been nothing in the men's speeches and behaviour to alarm the most timid captain; and I thought it would require but little tact and a few kindly concessions to make them, on the whole, a hard-working and tractable crew. The captain having kept silence for some time, exchanged looks with Duckling, and called to know if the men had any more complaints to make. They talked among themselves, and Johnson answered "No." "Very well, then," said he. "I can do nothing for you here. There are no bake-houses yonder," nodding at the sea, "to get fresh bread from. You must wait till we get to Valparaiso." A regular growl came up from the men, and Johnson exclaimed-- "We can't live on nothing till we get to Valparaiso." "What do you want me to do?" cried the skipper savagely. "It's not for us to dictate," replied Johnson. "All that the crew wants is grub fit to eat." "Put into Brest," exclaimed a voice. "It ain't fur off. There's good junk and biscuit to be got at Brest." "Who dares to advise me as to what I'm to do?" shouted the skipper in his furious way. "By Heaven, I'll break every bone in the scoundrel's body if he opens his infernal mutinous mouth again. I tell you I can't change the provisions here, and I'm not going to alter the ship's course with this wind astern, not if you were all starving in reality." But having said this he pulled up short, as if his temper were diverting him from the line of policy he had in his mind to follow; he lowered his voice and said, "I'll tell you what, my lads; you must make the provisions serve you for the present, and if I can make a fair wind of it, I'll haul round for some Spanish port: or if not there, I'll see what land is to be picked up." "You hear what the captain says, don't you?" growled Duckling.