But the Captain had left me, and was at that moment engaged on his after-supper occupation of jockeying a lee yard-arm, while the first mate, Mr. SOWSTER, was doing his best to keep up with his rough commanding officer by dangling to windward on the flemish horse, which, as it was touched in the wind and gone in the forelegs, stumbled violently over the buttery hatchway and hurled its venturesome rider into the hold.
CHAPTER II.
On the following morning we were all sitting in the palatial saloon of the Marlinspike. We were all there, all the characters, that is to say, necessary for the completion of a first class three-volume ocean novel. On my right sat the cayenne-peppery Indian Colonel, a small man with a fierce face and a tight collar, who roars like a bull and says, "Zounds, Sir," on the slightest provocation. Opposite to him was his wife, a Roman-nosed lady, with an imperious manner, and a Colonel-subduing way of curling her lip. On my left was the funny man. As usual he was of a sea-green colour, and might be expected at any moment to stagger to a porthole and call faintly for the steward. Further down the table sat two young nincompoops, brought on board specially in order that they might fulfil their destiny, and fill out my story, by falling in love with the fluffy-haired English girl who was sitting between them, and pouting equally and simultaneously at both. There was also the stout German who talks about "de sturm und der vafes." And beside him was the statuesque English beauty, whose eyes are of the rich blackness of the tropic sky, whose voice has a large assortment of sudden notes of haughtiness, while the studied insolence of her manner first freezes her victims and then incontinently and inconsistently scorches them. Eventually her proud spirit will be tamed, probably by a storm, or a ship-wreck, or by ten days in an open boat. I shall then secure your love, my peerless ARAMINTA, and you will marry me and turn out as soft and gentle as the moss-rose which now nestles in your raven tresses. The Colonel was speaking.
"Zounds, Sir!" he was saying. "I don't know what you mean by effects. All mine are on board. What do you say, Mr. TUGLEY?" he went on, looking at me with a look full of corkscrews and broken glass, while his choleric face showed of a purple hue under the effort of utterance.
"Well, Colonel," I replied, in an off-hand way, so as not to irritate him, "I keep my best effects here;" and, so saying, I produced my note-book, and tapped it significantly. "What, for instance, do you say to this?"
But, what follows, needs another chapter.
CHAPTER III.
I found the place in my notebook, cleared my voice, and began. "The ship was sailing gloriously under a press of canvas. Her foretopgallant-sail swelled to its cotton-like hue out of the black shadow of its incurving. High aloft, the swelling squares of her studding-sails gleamed in the misty sheen of the pale luminary, flinging her frosty light from point to point of the tapering masts, which rose, rose, rose into the morning air, as though with intent to pierce the glowing orb of day, poised in the heavens like one vast ball of liquid fire. Through the wind-hushed spaces of the canvas, where the foretopmaststay-sail—"
"I know that foretopmaststay-sail," said the funny man, suddenly. I withered him with a look, and turned over the page.
"Here," I said, "is another tip-topper. What do you think of this for a storm?—'The liquid acclivities were rising taller, and more threatening. With a scream of passion the tortured ship hurled itself at their deep-green crests. Cascades of rain, and hail, and snow, were dashing down upon her unprotected bulwarks. The inky sky was one vast thunder-clap, out of which the steely shaft of an electric flash pierced its dazzling path into the heart of the raving deep. The scud—'