Vanderdecken rose, pushed him away, and folded his arms.
“I advise you not to be quite so curious, Master Pilot, or you may repent it.”
“Or perhaps,” continued the pilot quite regardless of Philip’s wrath, “it may be a child’s caul, a sovereign remedy against drowning.”
“Go forward to your duty, sir,” cried Philip.
“Or, as you are a Catholic, the finger-nail of a saint; or, yes, I have it—a piece of the holy cross.”
Philip started.
“That’s it! that’s it!” cried Schriften, who now went forward to where the seamen were standing at the gangway.
“News for you, my lads!” said he; “we’ve a bit of the holy cross aboard, and so we may defy the devil!”
Philip, hardly knowing why, had followed Schriften as he descended the poop-ladder, and was forward on the quarterdeck, when the pilot made this remark to the seamen.
“Ay! ay!” replied an old seaman to the pilot; “not only the devil, but the Flying Dutchman to boot.”