“I am about to inquire.”
“Dere vhas noting wrong, all handts hope?”
“No; a severe bruise. Nothing more serious, I trust.”
“Vhas der brick to be hove-to all night?”
“Yaw.”
“To gomblete der vatering in der morning, I zooppose?”
“Yaw.”
“Vel, Mr. Fielding, der men hov oxed me to say dot if der captain vill give leave and she vhas not too sick to be troubled by der noise, dey vould like to celebrate der recovery of der dollars by two or dree leedle songs before der vatch vhas called.”
This was another way of asking for a glass of grog for all hands. There could be no objection. The men had been much exposed throughout the heat of the day, and what could more righteously warrant a harmless festal outburst than the recovery and transhipment of a hundred and forty cases of Spanish dollars?
I entered the cabin. The lady Aurora was still at table, but had long since ceased to eat. She lay back in her chair, her head drooped, her hands folded in the posture of one waiting. When I entered she lifted her head and smiled, her eyes brightened, her lips moved in the first framing of a sentence; no word escaped her; she pointed to a seat, and half rose from her own chair as though in doubt where I was used to sit. I shook my head, nodded toward the door of the captain’s berth, then at the clock under the skylight, holding up my fingers that she might guess I would join her in ten minutes; and so I passed on, hot in the face, and wondering whether it would be possible for me to communicate with her without making a fool of myself—for a fool I felt every time I gesticulated, which now I think must have been owing to my hatred of the French.