Neither spoke to the other, and it might have been supposed from their bearing towards one another that they had never met before.
It very soon became clear to Salve that he could not have hit upon a more unfortunate ship.

The crew was composed of the dregs of the New Orleans and Charleston docks--men with every species of vice and degradation stamped upon their countenances, and amongst whom every second word was some infamous oath or blasphemy.

Blows with handspikes were of common occurrence, and brutality and violence generally were the order of the day.

There was no court of appeal, and the immunity which any one individual might enjoy depended entirely upon how far he was protected by the officers--who, however, in a general way, did not interfere in the quarrels forward--or had formed a league with others.
The Americans and the Irish banded together, and being the most numerous, practised a shameless system of tyranny against any who could not defend themselves--a miserable sickly Spaniard, who had been forced to work until he had actually dropped, having recently been more especially the object of their attentions.

Their supremacy, however, was contested by a party of seven or eight tattered countrymen of the latter, with one or two Portuguese, who were always ready with their knives, and who formed a sort of opposition.