The mate took the matter with great good-humour, I may add, only saying to me, "Ah, never mind, Master Tom, we'll see who'll laugh best bye and bye." Jake used to sneak down on the sly to put my bunk in order so that I might be more comfortable, having, like most pure negroes, a thorough contempt for the mulatto steward.

He believed him quite incapable of looking after me properly.
"Him only poor trash, Mass' Tom," he would say to me; "he can't do nuffin', I'se like to come an' look after um cabin for young massa, when I'se in watch below." Then, the good-natured fellow would scrub away energetically at the floor, deluged with water, and fix up things straight for me; making the place far more neat and tidy in five minutes than Harry the mulatto could have done if he had been all day over the job.

He eclipsed the steward in his own line, while proving himself as good as any seaman in the ship.
Jake was a handy chap, indeed, all round, for he was of very considerable assistance to Cuffee in the galley when the stormy weather interfered with the cooking; so, Captain Miles did not object to his coming to look after me in this way.

He "winked at it," as he said.
During the evening of the day on which the wind shifted round to the north-west, the sky somewhat cleared and the night was fine and starlight; but the gale seemed to blow with all the greater vehemence as the clouds dispersed.

It increased to the strength of a hurricane towards one o'clock in the morning, when, the fore-topsail and mizzen staysail blowing away, the ship had to content herself with running under bare poles, careering through the water faster than ever.