“You have not misplaced your confidence. From the danger of mutiny, at least, you are exempt.”
“And from all others, I trust.”
“This is a wild and fickle element we dwell on,” he answered, while he bowed an acknowledgment for the politeness, and took the seat to which the other invited him by a motion of the hand; “but you know its character, and need not be told that we seamen are seldom certain of any of our movements I loosened the cords of discipline myself to-day,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “and in some measure invited the broil that followed: But it is passed, like the hurricane and the squall; and the ocean is not now smoother than the tempers of my knaves.”
“I have often witnessed these rude sports in vessels of the King; but I do not remember to have known any more serious result than the settlement of some ancient quarrel, or some odd freak of nautical humour, which has commonly proved as harmless as it has been quaint.”
“Ay; but the ship which often runs the hazards of the shoals gets wrecked at last,” muttered the Rover “I rarely give the quarter-deck up to the people, without keeping a vigilant watch on their humours; but—to-day”——
“You were speaking of to-day.”
“Neptune, with his coarse devices, is no stranger to you, Madam.”
“I have seen the God in times past.”
“’Twas thus I understood it;—under the line?”
“And elsewhere.”