As a last resort, he dived down among the _holders_.
A group of them sat round a lantern, in the dark bowels of the ship, like a knot of charcoal burners in a pine forest at midnight.
"Well, boys, what's the good word ?" said Israel, advancing very cordially, but keeping as much as possible in the shadow.
"The good word is," rejoined a censorious old _holder_, "that you had best go where you belong--on deck--and not be a skulking down here where you _don't_ belong.

I suppose this is the way you skulked during the fight." "Oh, you're growly to-night, shipmate," said Israel, pleasantly--"supper sits hard on your conscience." "Get out of the hold with ye," roared the other.

"On deck, or I'll call the master-at-arms." Once more Israel decamped.
Sorely against his grain, as a final effort to blend himself openly with the crew, he now went among the _waisters_: the vilest caste of an armed ship's company, mere dregs and settlings--sea-Pariahs, comprising all the lazy, all the inefficient, all the unfortunate and fated, all the melancholy, all the infirm, all the rheumatical scamps, scapegraces, ruined prodigal sons, sooty faces, and swineherds of the crew, not excluding those with dismal wardrobes.
An unhappy, tattered, moping row of them sat along dolefully on the gun-deck, like a parcel of crest-fallen buzzards, exiled from civilized society.
"Cheer up, lads," said Israel, in a jovial tone, "homeward-bound, you know.

Give us a seat among ye, friends." "Oh, sit on your head!" answered a sullen fellow in the corner.
"Come, come, no growling; we're homeward-bound.

Whoop, my hearties!" "Workhouse bound, you mean," grumbled another sorry chap, in a darned shirt.
"Oh, boys, don't be down-hearted.