He came often after this, always with the same brave talk.
One day, however, he seemed more like a plain man and said: “’Tis time thou wert up, my Hollander. There is thunder in the air, the horizon is big with clouds, the dull sea rustleth with the coming storm, and I smell the wind afar off.”
“Why,” said I, starting up, “Ludar told me but just now the weather was fair and settled, and that the breeze was shifting to the south.”
“I spoke not of the weather,” said he. “Let it be. The thunder may hide beneath a brow, the lightning may flash from out two eyelids, and the storm may break in a man’s breast.”
“For Heaven’s sake, speak plain,” said I. “What do you mean?”
“Wait and see,” said he, “I like not these French dogs. Only let thy eye be keen, thy ear quick, and thy hand ready, my Hollander, and stand by me when I call on thee.”
More I could not get out of him. When I spoke of it to Ludar afterwards, he said:
“Maybe the little antic is right. Yet they are too sorry a crew, and too small to do mischief. They suspect us of carrying treasure aboard, and your friend the captain, I take it, is the roundest villain of them all.”
I vowed the captain was no friend of mine; yet I believed him honest. But as for the crew, it came to my mind then what the drunken fellow had blabbed out the first night; and I said it was like enough to be true.
That afternoon I rose from my sick-bed and came on deck. I remember to this hour the joy of that afternoon.