“Easier,” said he; “there is no pain when I sit. A severe bruise—no more.”
“Yan Bol is a bit forward and outspoken for a foremast hand, don’t you think, captain?”
“He is a Dutchman, and all Dutchmen are cheeky. The word cheek originates with the Dutch. Look at their sterns and look at their faces, if you want the etymology of the word cheek.”
“I hope he’ll remain cheeky only. For my part, I don’t feel sure of the man.”
“Too late—too late,” said Greaves irritably and impatiently.
“I do not like that he should ask me the value of the treasure that is to come aboard, and I do not like that he should say that as the size of a flea is to the size of the dog that scratches it, is the proportion of the forecastle share to the whole of the money.”
“If he gives me trouble,” said Greaves, “I will shoot him. I will show you the rising moon through a slug-hole in the devil’s skull. But do not accept Yan Bol too literally. Dutchmen will say without significance that which, in the mouth of an Englishman, might sound brutally malevolent and sinister.”
“That may be, sir. I don’t know the Dutch.”
“I have made up my mind not to meddle with the cargo. Do not trouble to examine it. The money will be risk enough. Shrewd as old Tulp believes himself to be, and really is, the anxiety of running a quantity of tin won’t be worth the purchase. If the cocoa is sweet, bring some of it off for the ship’s use, and if you can meet with the four casks of tortoise shell, we’ll find room for the stuff. Four casks are easy of transhipment, but the rest we’ll let be.”
This was good sense. It must have taken us some time to break out and tranship the tin and the wool and the hides in hair. The smuggling of such stuff, on our arrival home, would have taxed even the many-sided, hard-salted cunning of a Dealman; and, smuggling apart, without papers, how were these commodities to have been passed?