The moon was shining very brightly, and the waves all the way to the horizon were stippled with light, while the bright stars were reflected and multiplied in the water like a myriad of diamonds.
There was a breeze blowing just then, so there was no need for the present to keep steam up, as a sailor calls it.
Steam is not nice on board ship, Warlock. There is a terrible noise, and everywhere the ship is shaken. You cannot help fancying you are inside a mill all the time, with such a multitude of wheels rattling round and round, that it quite bewilders one.
But to-night there was hardly a hush on deck, except now and then the trampling of the sailors’ feet, or a song borne aft from the forecastle.
I was not a ship’s cat yet, you know, Warlock, and so didn’t know the names of things. But I soon found a guide, or rather the guide found me. I was standing on the quarter-deck, as it is called, looking about me in a very uncertain kind of way, when I heard soft footsteps stealing up behind me, and, looking round, was rather startled to see standing there in the moonlight, which made him look double the size, an immense black Thomas cat, with yellow fiery eyes.
I was going to bolt down the stairs again at once, and ask my master to come and shoot him, but there was a sort of music in his voice which appealed to me the moment he spoke.
“Oh, you lovely, angelic pussy princess,” he said; “be not afraid, I pray you. Hurry not away, for if you leave the deck the moon will cease to shine, and the stars will lose their radiance.”
He advanced stealthily towards me as he spoke, singing aloud. But I sprang upon the skylight at once, raised my back and growled, as much probably in terror as in anger.
“Come but one step nearer,” I cried, “and I will leap into the foaming sea.”
“Dear princess,” he said, “I would rather lose my life. I would rather throw my body to the sharks than any ill should happen to a hair of your head.”