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So true on a wind, so sweet to her helm, and Master Adam's worthy of her, blister me else!" "'Tis strange I should sleep so long!" says I, clasping my aching head. "Why, you'm wise to sleep all ye can, pal, seeing there be nought better to do here i' the dark," says he, setting out the viands before me. "What, no appetite, Mart'n?" I shook my head.
Give me a pack and I'm all peddler and j'y in it, gi'e me a ship and I'm all mariner to handle her sweet and kind and lay ye a course wi' any though guns is my meat, Mart'n. Fifteen year I followed the sea and a man is apt to learn a little in such time.
"Avast, pal!" says he shaking his head, "look'ee, Mart'n, 'tis in my mind the devil's aboard this ship." "And what then?" I demanded angrily. "Am I a raree show to be peeped at and watched and spied upon?" "Anan, pal watched, d'ye say?" "Aye, stared at through the knot-hole yonder awhile since by you or Penfeather."
"Aye, Mart'n, we've sought 'em alow and aloft, all over the ship, save only this hole o' yourn the which you might ha' known had ye slept less." "Have I slept so much, then?" "Pal, you've done little else since you came aboard, seemingly.
"Why then come, Mart'n, clap your eye on my beauties here's guns, Mart'n, six culverins and t'others sakers, and yonder astern two basilisks as shall work ye death and destruction at two or three thousand paces; 'bove deck amidships I've divers goodly pieces as minions, falcons and patereros with murderers mounted aft to sweep the waist.
"Where's Adam?" I questioned. "To'-gallant poop, Mart'n. Lord love ye, it's little sleep he's had since we hove anchor. Hark'ee, pal he's got it into his head as we'm being dogged!" "Dogged, man by what?" "By that same great black ship as fouled us he has so, pal roast me else! But come your ways."
Many's the time I've watched it, dawn and sunset, and, minding all the goodly ships and the jolly lads as are a-sleeping down below, at such times, Mart'n, it do seem to me as if all the good and glory of 'em came aloft for eyes to see awhile howbeit, 'tis a noble winding-sheet, pal, from everlasting to everlasting, amen!
"Why, Mart'n!" cried he. "Oh, pal here's j'y, choke me wi' a rammer else! Lord, Mart'n three years how time doth gallop! And you no whit changed, save for your beard!
And each of them i' the middle watch the sleepy hour, Mart'n, just afore dawn. In a fair night, pal, wi' a calm sea these men vanish and none to see 'em go. And all of 'em prime sailor-men and trusty. The which, Mart'n, sets a cove to wondering who'll be next." "But are you sure they are gone?"
Ever and anon the moon peeped through wrack of flying cloud, by whose pale beam I caught glimpses of bellying sails towering aloft with their indefinable mass of gear and rigging, and the heel and lift of her looming forecastle as the stately vessel rose to the heaving seas or plunged in a white smother of foam. "She rides well, Mart'n!" roared Godby in my ear. "Aha, here's duck of a ship, pal!"
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