“You must be mighty old, Hans, to have experienced such things,” I ventured to say, as he yarned on one night. Then, so that he might see that I wasn’t as green as he appeared to think I was, I added, “Might you have met Abraham or any of the Pharaohs in your time?”
For a moment he puffed his antique pipe, his fingers toiling away as he stitched the fragments of his ancient clothing together; for quite a while longer his chin pressed his white beard against his chest, as he sat in an attitude of deep thought. Then I distinctly observed an amused twinkle shoot into his pale blue eyes, as, solemnly shaking his head, he replied, “No, I’ve never ’eard of them coves; they muster ’ave been born after my time!”
“Do you mean to tell me that you’re older than Abraham?” I said quietly.
Hans looked steadily at me, then gave me a solemn nudge in the ribs. And then I knew that old Hans had been a bit of a humorist in his youth, ages ago! I didn’t cotton to Steffan as keenly as I did to Hans. The fact is, he would get drunk and shout all through the night, mind you:
Blow! blow! bully boys, blow—O!
We’re bound, bound for Callao—O!
We, the sailormen of long ago—O!
So let the winds roar what they know—O!
Blow! blow! bully boys, blow—O!
Then he’d finish up by expectorating a stream of tobacco juice right through the port-hole on the figure-head’s dishevelled hair! (It is only the callow youth who sees the poetry and romance of carven wood.) But even Steffan became emotional when he opened his sea-chest and took forth his old tattered love-letters. It seemed unbelievable as I listened to the soft, sweet things romantic girls of eastern lands had written in praise of Steffan’s eyes, tender ways, and figure! Then he would fold each tattered yellow fragment up, and moan with the winds outside in the foremast rigging, as tears coursed down his wrinkled cheeks! I think it was when the skipper mustered the crew for prayers, aft in the cuddy, that those old sailormen appeared the most emotional. It was quite evident by their voices that they believed in a Supreme Being’s watchful care over the lot of old sailormen. I would play the fiddle as they stood by the cuddy’s table, prayer-book in hand, lifting their sea-weary eyes mournfully, as their voices rose and fell. What voices! Mellow and sombre with years, the deep bass notes seemed to come from beneath the deck under their feet and echo through their beards. The skipper, divested of all his erstwhile blasphemy, would hit the cuddy’s table with his knuckles as he tried to keep the tempo and the language the same (they sang in various tongues). And one night, when they all stood singing with their huddled backs bent, and the cuddy’s dim lamp swung to and fro sending glimmerings over their wrinkled faces, I seemed to have suddenly passed into a bygone age. “Houndsditch” and the two other modern sailors were mysteriously blown, like cobweb figures, out of the saloon by a puff of wind. Only those eight hairy-chested, tattooed figures stood there, looking like misty things with hollow eyes and eerie grey beards, as they sang a hymn that strangely echoed up in the wailing sails. The tap, tap of the skipper’s knuckles on the cuddy table sounded afar off. I heard only the long, low plunge of the “Zangwahee’s” bows as she roamed onward and the praying hands of the figure-head swerved, dived, or softly lifted towards the tropic skies, while I stared across the little swaying table, fiddling to the voices of those old sailors, as we sailed the dim, starlit seas of romance!