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"She's a fair ship!" says I, seating myself on one of the great guns mounted astern. "She is so, Mart'n. There's no finer e'er sailed from Deptford Pool, which is saying much, split me if it isn't. Though, when all's said, Martin, I could wish for twenty more men to do justice to my noble guns, aye thirty at the least." "Are we so short?"
"Why, 'tis the stench o' this place faugh! Come aloft and take a mouthful o' good, sweet air, pal." "You say you sought these men everywhere even down here in the hold?" "Aye, alow and aloft, every bulkhead and timber from trucks to keelson!" "And all this time I was asleep, Godby?" "Aye like a log, Mart'n." "And breathing heavily?"
"I'll get up!" said I, tossing off the bed clothes. "Lord, Mart'n, what'll Cap'n Adam say " "'Tis no matter!" "Are ye strong enough, pal?"
I questioned, lowering my voice in turn as I met his look. "I mean, lad, as this thing call it ghost or what ye will has took three men these last two nights. There's Perks o' Deptford, McLean as hails from Leith, and Treliving the Cornishman three good men, Mart'n lost, vanished, gone! And, O pal, wi' never a mark or trace to tell how!" "Lost! D'ye mean overboard?" "No, Mart'n, I mean lost!
Look'ee now, 'roomer' means 'large, and 'large' means 'free, and 'free' means wi' a quartering-wind, and that means going away from the wind or the wind astarn of us; whiles 'on a bowline' means close-hauled agin the wind, d'ye see?" "Godby, 'tis hard to believe you that same peddler I fell in with at the 'Hop-pole." "Why, Mart'n, I'm a cove as adapts himself according.
"No, I don't!" "Well, Mart'n, there be strange talk among the crew o' something as do haunt the 'tween-decks " "Aye, I've overheard some such!" I nodded. "But, look ye, I've haunted the ship myself of late." "And yet you've seen nowt o' this thing, pal?" "No. What thing should I see?" "Who knows, Martin?
Presently to me comes Godby: "Lord, Mart'n!" said he, hitching fiercely at the broad belt of his galligaskins. "Here's been doin's o' late, pal, doin's as outdoes all other doin's as ever was done! Talk o' glory? Talk o' fame? There's enough on't aboard this here ship t' last every man on us all his days and longer. And what's more to the p'int, Mart'n, there's gold! And silver! In bars!
And presently, being summoned, Adam appeared on the lofty poop in all the bravery of flowing periwig and 'broidered coat. "Ha, Mart'n," sighed Godby, hitching at his belt as we went to meet him, "I love him best in buff and steel, though he'll ever be my cap'n, pal. There aren't what you'd call a lot of him, neither, but what there is goeth a prodigious long way in steel or velvet. Talk o' glory!
Thus it was in one of my blackest humours that Godby found me when, having set down the victuals he had brought, he closed the crazy door and seated himself on the cask that served me as chair, and bent to peer at me where I lay. "Mart'n," said he, speaking almost in a whisper, "be ye awake at last?" For answer I cursed him heartily.
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