“But, captain”——
“Io sono the Kantoon de cette ship.”
“But, Kantoon, I see no chair upon which to be seated.”
“Quel difference? Sit upon the deck.”
I seated myself as gracefully as possible upon the damp planks, curling my feet under me, a la Turc, and for more than an hour the Kantoon and I conversed upon general subjects relating to the sea.
He adhered to his horribly incongruous polyglot language. So far as I could make out, he actually spoke no one language with even a show of correctness, but his vocabulary of phrases and words from the Continental languages and English was enormous. There was hardly any thought that he could not express clearly in that way. A keen ear and ready mind were required to follow him.
Above, I have indicated in a few brief sentences his mode of speech. The Kantoon never hesitated a moment for a word. He selected them with reference to the context. Gender, conjugation and declension were things utterly unknown to his system of grammar. I soon discovered that he knew more Portuguese and Spanish than any of the other languages, and accounted for that on the ground that he had been associated with Spanish sailors more than any others.
After a little time, I grew to a better understanding of the polyglot language. I recollected that I had attended a performance of the great Salvini in New York, in which I had heard “Hamlet” rendered in very much the same fashion as the Kantoon spoke to me. The members of the cast associated with the distinguished Italian tragedian knew only the English tongue, while Salvini spoke in Italian. It seemed a trifle incongruous to me, in far-away New York, to hear Hamlet give the “Instructions to the Players” in sonorous Italian—a language they did not understand. No experience is wasted in this world, and the recollection of that season of Anglo-Italian tragedy prepared me for conversation on the Happy Shark.
The Kantoon then proceeded to explain to me at great length the organization of the ship. Early in the interview he was kind enough to announce to me that when I had become tractable enough and thoroughly reconciled to being grafted upon the Sargasson family tree, he would give me a station on board ship and an attendant to wait upon me.
This was encouraging, but I could not drive from my mind the fate of my crew and the terrible calamity that overshadowed my ship. Therefore, I fear I did not listen as attentively as I should have done to the ethical history of the Sargassons, shuddering meanwhile at the thought that I would have plenty of time in which to make this study for myself.