“Yes; you can’t go up till this weather’s better. Want to be washed overboard?”
“I should like to be washed somewhere,” said Esau, “for I feel very dirty and miserable.”
“Sit down and wait patiently, my lad,” said the man; “and don’t you come butting that curly head of yours into me again, like an old Southdown ram coming at a man. I don’t want my ribs broke.”
“Have you been at sea before?” I said to him, as he sat back smoking a short pipe.
“Often. Been to ’Stralia, and New Zealand, and the Cape.”
“Was it ever as rough as this?”
“Worse,” he said, laconically.
“But not so dangerous?” said Esau, in a questioning tone.
“Worse,” said the man gruffly.
“But we keep seeming as if we should go to the bottom,” said Esau, fretfully.