The uncertain point which troubled him most was the matter of the
crew of the _Seamew_. The Portygees remaining with him--even Johnny
Lark, the cook--had been in a most unhappy temper all the way back
from Boston on the last trip. Tunis could depend upon Mate Chapin,
Boatswain Newbegin, and 'Rion Latham himself to stick by the
schooner. For, in spite of his quarreling and long tongue about a
hoodoo, Tunis thought that his cousin was a man above any real fear
of the very superstitions he talked about.
But four men could not safely work the schooner to Boston, nor in
season to keep his contract with the consignees of freight which the
_Seamew_ carried. Troubled as he had been at Boston, and delayed,
Tunis wished now that he had remained there even longer while he
made search for and engaged a proper crew for the schooner. He had
better, perhaps, have paid the fare of the Portygees back to Big
Wreck Cove and so saved quarreling with them.
When he had been about to leave the schooner the afternoon before,
the foolish fellows had sent a spokesman to him asking if he was
sure the _Seamew_ was not the old _Marlin B._, the Salem fishing
craft which had been acclaimed "the murder ship" from the Banks to
the Cape by all coasting seamen several years before.
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