They were by no means in a laughing humour when they learned how the land lay, and neither was he, for that matter, when they left him. Convinced that at all risks he must make the water boil, he frantically heaped upon the fire odd bits of rope and canvas; but the water had a will of its own, and boil it would not. Eight o'clock struck, and again they came, each holding out an empty hook-pot, which he filled with by no means the best grace in the world, trying, as he ladled out the vile mixture, to sink the coffee, which floated like dust upon the surface. It would not do. First one man came growling back, and then another, and then the steward arrived to ask after the captain's potatoes. The captain's potatoes! He had forgotten all about them, and they had meanwhile been having a rare lark of it on deck, rattling first into one hole and then into another, until at last the greater number of them had scuttled overboard. What had he done? Had he been guilty of mutiny, insubordination, or gross carelessness as bad as either, on the high seas? In his panic he stepped back into the galley, which, for a wonder, happened to be free from water, and a hot coal falling out of the stove, burned his foot; and so ingloriously ended his career as cook.
At Pagoda Island the captain became seriously ill; and notwithstanding the most careful nursing on the part of his wife and our sailor apprentice, he passed away without ever having recovered consciousness, and was interred in the English cemetery at Foo-chow.
On the 6th November, the _Sea Queen_ having loaded up, and being ready to start, a new captain came on board, the crew standing by the break of the forecastle and keenly eyeing him as he stepped on deck. There was not much to look at in him. He was a middle-sized man, with a moustache and whiskers of a sandy red hue; and that he did not despise his creature-comforts was evident from the quantity of provisions that came on board next day. He was, however, not illiberal with his good things, but from time to time presented the apprentices' mess with some little delicacies. As for the question of questions always asked by a crew with regard to a new captain: 'Does he carry on?' that is, does he risk a large press of sail in a stiff wind, it had to be answered in the negative. He was, in fact, as timid as his predecessor had been, but from a different cause--he had always formerly commanded a steamer, and his new duties were strange to him.