The good-natured Chinaman also gave me a couple of hard ship's biscuits which he took out of a drawer in the locker above the fireplace, where they were kept dry.
"Hi, you eatee um chop chop," said he, as he handed me the basin and the biscuits and made me sit down on a sort of settle in the galley opposite the warm fire--"makee tummee tummee all right." The effects of this food were as wonderful in my instance as in that of the poor starved bricklayer shortly before; for, when I had eaten the last biscuit crumb and drained the final drop of pea-soup from the basin, I felt a new man, or rather boy--Allan Graham himself, and not the wretched feeble nonentity I had been previously.
Of course, I thanked Ching Wang for his kindness as I rose up from the settle to go away, on the starboard watch, who were just relieved from their duty on deck, coming for their tea; but the Chinee only shook his head with a broad smile on his yellow face, as if deprecating any return for his kind offices.
"You goodee pijjin and chin chin when you comee," he only said, "and when you wanchee chow-chow, you comee Ching Wang and him gettee you chop chop!" Then, I stopped in front of the forecastle, as Tim Rooney giving me a cheery hail, and saw to my wonder Joe Fergusson looking all hale and hearty and jolly amongst the men, without the least trace of having been, apparently, at his last gasp but an hour or so before.
He was half lying down, half sitting on the edge of one of the bunks, nursing the big stray tortoise-shell tom-cat which had shared his lodgings in the forepeak, and he had mistaken it for a rat as it crept up and down the chain-pipe to see what it could pick up in the cook's galley at meal-times, which it seemed to know by some peculiar instinct of its own; and although thus partially partial to Ching Wang's society, the cat now appeared to have taken even a greater fancy to his bed- fellow in his hiding-place below than it had done to the cook, looking upon the stowaway evidently as a fellow-comrade, who was unfortunately in similar circumstances to himself.
Joe Fergusson not only looked all right, but he likewise was in the best of spirits, possibly from the tot of rum Tim Rooney had given him after his soup, to "pull him together," as the boatswain said; for, ere I left the precincts of the forecastle he volunteered to sing a song, and as I made my way aft I heard the beginning of some plaintive ditty concerning a "may-i-den of Manches-teer," followed by a rousing chorus from the crew, which had little or nothing to do with the main burden of the ballad, the men's refrain being only a "Yo, heave ho, it's time for us to go!" A hint which I took.
The wind did not freshen quite so soon as either Mr Mackay or the captain expected; but it continued to blow pretty steadily from the north-west with considerable force, the ship bending over to it as it caught her abaft the beam, and bowling along before it over the billowy ocean like a prancing courser galloping over a race-course, tossing her bows up in the air one moment and plunging them down the next, and spinning along at a rare rate through the crested foam.
As it got later, though, the gale increased; and shortly after "two bells in the first watch," nine o'clock that is in landsman's time, Captain Gillespie, who was on deck again, gave the order to shorten sail.
"Stand by your topgallant halliards!" cried Mr Mackay, giving the necessary instructions for the captain's order to be carried into effect, following this command up immediately by a second--"Let go!" Then, the clewlines and buntlines were manned, and in a trice the three topgallants were hanging in festooned folds from the upper yards, I doing my first bit of service at sea by laying hold of the ropes that triced up the mizzen-topgallant-sail, and hauling with the others, Mr Mackay giving me a cheery "Well done, my lad," as I did so.
Tom Jerrold, who now appeared on the poop, and whom I had fought shy of before, thinking he had behaved very unkindly to me in the morning, was one of the first to spring into the mizzen-shrouds and climb up the ratlines on the order being given to furl the sail, getting out on the manrope and to the weather earing at the end of the yard before either of the three hands who also went up.
Seeing him go up the rigging, I was on the point of following him; but Mr Mackay, whose previous encouragement, indeed, had spurred me on, stopped me.
"No, my boy," said he kindly, "you must not go aloft yet, for you might fall overboard.

Besides, you would not be of the slightest use on the yard even if you didn't tumble.

Wait till you've got your sea-legs and know the ropes." I had therefore to wait and watch Tom Jerrold swinging away up there and bundling the sail together, the gaskets being presently passed round it and the mizzen-topgallant made snug.

When Tom and the others came down, he grinned at me so cordially that I made friends with him again; but I was longing all the time for the blissful moment when I too could go aloft like him.
Previously to this, I had given Billy, the ship's boy, a shilling to swab out our cabin and make it all right, so that neither Tom nor Weeks could grumble at the state it was in; and Sam Weeks, at all events, seemed satisfied, for he turned into his bunk as soon as Billy had done cleaning up, having begged Tom Jerrold to take his place for once with the starboard men, who had the first watch this evening instead of the "middle watch," as on the previous night.

This shifting of the watches, I may mention here, gives all hands in turn an opportunity of being on deck at every hour of the night and day, without being monotonously bound down to any fixed time to be on duty throughout the voyage, as would otherwise have been the case.
This alternation of the four hours of deck duty is effected by the dog- watches in the afternoon, which being of only two hours duration each, from four o'clock till six the first, and the second from six to eight o'clock, change the whole order of the others; as, for instance, the port watch, which has the deck for the first dog-watch to-night, say, will come on again for the first night watch from eight o'clock till twelve, and the morning watch from four o'clock until eight, the starboard watch, which goes on duty for the second dog-watch, taking the middle watch, from midnight till four o'clock, and then going below to sleep, while the port watch takes the morning one.