"As how?"
"Speak me gently, look kindly on me, for I am sick, Martino, and shall be worse. I never can abide a rolling ship—'tis this cursed woman's body o' mine. So to-day am I all woman and yearn for tenderness—and we shall have more bad weather by the look o' things! Have you enough knowledge to handle this ship in a storm?"
"Not I!"
"'Tis pity," she sighed, "'tis pity! I would hang Belvedere and make you captain in his room—he wearies me, and would kill me were he man enough—ah, Mother of Heaven, what a sea!" she cried, clinging to me as a great wave broke forward, filling the air with hissing spray. "Aid me aft, Martino!"
Hereupon, seeing her so haggard and faint, and the decks deserted save for the watch, I did as she bade me as well as I might by reason of my fetters and the uneasy motion of the ship, and at last (and no small labour) I brought her into the great cabin or roundhouse under the poop. And now she would have me bide and talk with her awhile, but this I would by no means do.
"And why not, Martino?" she questioned in soft, wheedling fashion. "Am I so hateful to you yet? Wherefore go?"
"Because I had rather lie in my fetters out yonder at the mercy o' wind and wave!" said I.
Now at this she fell to sudden weeping and, as suddenly, to reviling me with bitter curses.
"Go then!" cried she, striking me in her fury. "Keep your chains—aye, I will give ye to the mercy of this rabble crew … leave me!" The which I did forthwith and, finding me a sheltered corner, cast myself down there and fell to hearkening to the rush of the wind and to watching the awful might of the racing, foam-capped billows. And, beholding these manifestations of God's majesty and infinite power, of what must I be thinking but my own small desires and unworthy schemes of vengeance! And bethinking me of Don Federigo (and him governor of Nombre de Dios) I began planning how I might use him to my purpose. My mind full of this, I presently espied the mate, Resolution Day, his laced hat and noble periwig replaced by a close-fitting seaman's bonnet, making his way across the heaving deck as only a seaman might (and despite his limp) and as he drew nearer I hailed and beckoned him.
"Aha, and are ye there, camarado!" said he. "'Tis well, for I am a-seeking ye."