“Who is this at the wheel?”
“Jorge, señor.”
“You don’t speak English, do you?”
The man understood me, and shook his head. “Pretty cool fists,” thought I, “to send this poor devil aft, while you enjoy yourselves with your songs and pipes and grog! Here is a shipwrecked man; what care you? He is a poor rag of a man, and very fit to be put upon; so it has been, ’Aft with ye and grip them spokes, while a better man than e’er a mumping Spaniard in all Americay comes for’ard and enjoys himself.” But it was not a matter to be mended while the fellows were in the full of their jollification.
“Como se llama esto?” exclaimed a voice at my elbow, and a small hand, gleaming with rings, was projected into the sheen of the binnacle lamp.
I started, conceiving that the lady was still at the bulwark rail, deep in thought or listening to the singing.
“I do not understand,” said I.
“Ow you call, señor?” exclaimed Jorge.
She pointed to the compass, wanting its name in English.
I pronounced the word and she echoed it very clearly; then lightly laying her hand upon my arm she took a few steps forward, and, pointing to the sea, asked again in Spanish what that was called. In this way I gave her some dozen words; and when I believed she was about to ask for more terms she, with her hand laid lightly on my arm, led me back to the wheel, and, pointing to the compass, pronounced its name in English, then indicated the sea, uttering the word, and so she went through the list she had got, blundering but once, at the word “star,” which she pronounced zar.