"Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication."
So let us—drink—drink as long'sh—there'sh—a shot—in—the—locker!' he added, in a voice that became every moment more thick and 'feathery.'
So in these perilous hands was Ellinor Wellwood now.
But for the presence and companionship of the honest Vierlander woman, to whom she clung, though of whose patois of Danish or North German she could make little or nothing, Ellinor thought she must have died.
Her own clothes had been destroyed by her immersion, and meantime, when quite conscious, she felt it something odious and repellant to wear the clothes of others of whom she knew nothing, but suspected much.
How long was this atrocity to be continued?
She remained resolutely in the little cabin, declining to enter the saloon, or take food or refreshment of any kind, and, when sense quite returned, she watched from the little eyelet-hole—the port was nothing more—of her sleeping-place for a passing ship or boat, to which she might shriek for aid; but dense dark mist obscured everything, and she cast herself on the bed in despair.
The Flying Foam was cutter-rigged, and sat in the water gracefully. She was about a hundred and fifty tons burden, and consequently had an immense fore-and-aft boom-mainsail. Her deck was of narrow deal planks, and was always white as snow—white as swab and holystone could make it. Her ten guns were all burnished brass; the binnacles and bitts were of polished mahogany; the cabins were all panelled maple, with gilded mouldings; everything there was alike luxuriant and recherché; for the purse the old soap-boiler left to his only son and heir was a pretty long one; yet he was sometimes a little in debt, and found yachting then convenient.
The crew consisted of twelve men all told, including the sailing-master and Joe Lobscouse, the cook.
The former, Rufane Ringbolt, was, if not a good, not a bad-looking man, about forty years of age; his eyes were clear, blue, and penetrating, but cunning, leery, and shifting at times. The expression of his mouth, about the curves especially, was sinister and lascivious. There was a self-confident and reckless bearing about him too aggressive to be that of a gentleman or officer, for he had been the latter once, having served in Her Majesty's navy, but been—dismissed.