“Now we will hoist up the boats,” said Mynheer Kloots, “and let us all, before we lie down to sleep, thank God for our deliverance.”
During that night the Ter Schilling made an offing of twenty miles, and then stood to the southward; towards the morning the wind again fell, and it was nearly calm.
Mynheer Kloots had been on deck about an hour, and had been talking with Hillebrant upon the danger of the evening, and the selfishness and pusillanimity of Mynheer Von Stroom, when a loud noise was heard in the poop-cabin.
“What can that be?” said the captain; “has the good man lost his senses from the fright? Why, he is knocking the cabin to pieces.”
At this moment the servant of the supercargo ran out of the cabin.
“Mynheer Kloots, hasten in—help my master—he will be killed—the bear!—the bear!”
“The bear! what Johannes?” cried Mynheer Kloots. “Why, the animal is as tame as a dog. I will go and see.”
But before Mynheer Kloots could walk into the cabin, out flew in his shirt the affrighted supercargo. “My God! my God! am I to be murdered?—eaten alive?” cried he, running forward, and attempting to climb the fore-rigging.
Mynheer Kloots followed the motions of Mynheer Von Stroom with surprise, and when he found him attempting to mount the rigging, he turned aft and walked into the cabin, when he found to his surprise that Johannes was indeed doing mischief.
The panelling of the state cabin of the supercargo had been beaten down, the wig boxes lay in fragments on the floor, the two spare wigs were lying by them, and upon them were strewed fragments of broken pots and masses of honey, which Johannes was licking up with peculiar gusto.