Jovannic saluted mechanically. Life his own life clogged his feet; to act was like wading in treacle. He had an impulse of utter wild rebellion, of ferocious self-assertion. Then:
"Zu Befehl, Herr Hauptmann!" he said, and saluted.
II
THE DAGO
Eight bells had sounded, and in the little triangular fo'c'sle of the Anna Maria the men of the port watch were waiting for their dinner. The daylight which entered by the open hatch overhead spread a carpet of light at the foot of the ladder, which slid upon the deck to the heave and fall of the old barque's blunt bows, and left in shadow the double row of bunks and the chests on which the men sat. From his seat nearest the ladder, Bill, the ship's inevitable Cockney, raised his flat voice in complaint.
"That bloomin' Dago takes 'is time over fetchin' the hash," he said.
"'E wants wakin' up a bit that's wot 'e wants."
Sprawling on the edge of his bunk forward, Dan, the oldest man in the ship, took his pipe from his lips in the deliberate way in which he did everything. Short in stature and huge in frame, the mass of him, even in that half-darkness of the fo'c'sle, showed somehow majestic and powerful.
"The mate came after 'im about somethin' or other," he said in his deep, slow tones.
"That's right," said another seaman. "It was about spillin' some tar on the deck, an' now the Dago's got to stop up this arternoon an' holystone it clean in his watch below."
"Bloomin' fool," growled the Cockney. But it was the wrong word, and the others were silent.