“Of course you didn’t, sir,” said the man, speaking as if relieved. “Made me feel as if my head was getting a bit soft.”
“No wonder, if you keep on tapping it with the clothes-brush.”
“Oh, that won’t hurt it, sir, my head’s hard as wood. I’m a bit late this morning—over-slept myself. Had the rummiest dream I ever knowed of.”
“What did you dream?”
“Dreamt as I come up in the middle of the night, just when it was thinking about getting to morning, and we’d sailed to about the horridest place as ever was, and then I looked round and saw you like a black shadow going about the deck without making a sound.”
“I had no shoes on,” said Jack.
“Then it wasn’t a dream, and it was only that the place looked so dismal drear in the dusk.”
“Of course it was, Ned.”
The man gave his head a rap with the clothes-brush. “Then that’s a lesson for a man never to be in too much of a hurry. ’Pon my word, Mr Jack, sir, when I came just now and had a look, I felt as if I must have been dreaming, for as soon as I went below I lay down for a snooze, and went off like a top.”
“The light has made a wonderful change, Ned,” said Jack. “Well, what do you think of it now?”