The Black Eagle had a fair cargo aboard, and Miggs was proportionately jubilant.  The drunken old sea-dog had taken a fancy to Tom’s frank face and honest eyes, and greeted him with effusion when he came aboard next morning.

“Knock me asunder, but you look rosy, man!” he cried.  “It’s easy to see that you have not been lying off Fernando Po, or getting the land mist into your lungs in the Gaboon.”

“You look well yourself, captain,” said Tom.

“Tolerable, tolerable.  Just a touch of the jumps at times.”

“We can begin getting our cargo out, I suppose?  I have a list here to check it.  Will you have the hatches off at once?”

“No work for me,” said Captain Hamilton Miggs with decision.  “Here, Sandy—­Sandy McPherson, start the cargo, will ye, and stir your great Scotch bones.  I’ve done enough in bringing this sieve of a ship all the way from Africa, without working when I am in dock.”

McPherson was the first mate, a tall, yellow-bearded Aberdonian.  “I’ll see t’it,” he said shortly.  “You can gang ashore or where you wull.”

“The Cock and Cowslip,” said the captain, “I say, you—­Master Dimsdale—­when you’re done come up an’ have a glass o’ wine with me.  I’m only a plain sailor man, but I’m damned if my heart ain’t in the right place.  You too, McPherson—­you’ll come up and show Mr. Dimsdale the way. Cock and Cowslip, corner o’ Sextant Court.”  The two having accepted his invitation, the captain shuffled off across the gangway and on to terra firma.

All day Tom stood at the hatchway of the Black Eagle, checking the cargo as it was hoisted out of her, while McPherson and his motley assistants, dock labourers, seamen, and black Kroomen from the coast, worked and toiled in the depths below.  The engine rattled and snorted, and the great chain clanked as it was lowered into the hold.

“Make fast there!” cries the mate.

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“All right?”

“All right, sir.”

“Hoist away!”

And clank, clank went the chain again, and whir-r-r the engine, and up would come a pair of oil casks, as though the crane were some giant forceps which was plucking out the great wooden teeth of the vessel.  It seemed to Tom, as he stood looking down, note-book in hand, that some of the actual malarious air of the coast had been carried home in the hold, so foul and close were the smells evolved from it.  Great cockchafers crawled about over the packages, and occasionally a rat would scamper over the barrels, such a rat as is only to be found in ships which hail from the tropics.  On one occasion too, as a tusk of ivory was being hoisted out, there was a sudden cry of alarm among the workers, and a long, yellow snake crawled out of the cavity of the trunk and writhed away into the darkness.  It is no uncommon thing to find the deadly creatures hibernating in the hollow of the tusks until the cold English air arouses them from their torpor, to the cost occasionally of some unhappy stevedore or labourer.