“You seem as wide awake, King Stephen,” the mate remarked, “as if you never felt drowsy.”
“This is not a part of the world for hammocks and berths, Mr. Hazard,” was the reply. “I can get along, and must get along, with a quarter part of the sleep in these seas as would serve me in a low latitude.”
“And I feel as if I wanted all I can get. Them fellows look up well into our wake, Stephen.”
“They do indeed, sir, and they ought to do it; for we have been longer than is for our good in their’n.”
“Well, now we have got a fresh start, I hope we may make a clear run of it. I saw no ice worth speaking of, to the nor’ard here, before we made sail.”
“Because you see’d none, Mr. Hazard, is no proof there is none. Floe-ice can’t be seen at any great distance, though its blink may. But, it seems to me, it’s all blink in these here seas!”
“There you’re quite right, Stephen, for turn which way you will the horizon has a show of that sort”—
“Starboard!” called out the lookout forward. “Keep her away—keep her away—there is ice ahead!”
“Ice in here!” exclaimed Hazard springing forward; “that is more than we bargained for. Where away is your ice, Smith?”
“Off here, sir, on our weather bow, and a mortal big field of it; jist sich a chap as nipp’d the Vineyard Lion when she first came in to join us. Sich a fellow as that would take the sap out of our bends, as a squeezer takes the juice from a lemon.”