“There’s an Atlantic Ocean of drink in this here case alone.”
“Smite me, but if this gets blown the girls’ll be coming down to meet the brig afore she’s reported.”
“She vhas a handsome coin. I likes to feel her in mine pocket. How much vhas she vurth, Mr. Fielding?”
“All that you shall be able to buy with her. Next case, and bear a hand.”
“How many tousand dollars vhas tdere in all?”
“Enough to stiffen you with sausage and to keep ye oozy with schnapps.”
We worked our way to the bottom case, and every case was chock-a-block, as we say at sea—filled flush—and the dollars by the lantern light resembled exquisitely wrought chain armor. I saw that every case was securely nailed; the boxes were restowed. We then climbed out of the lazarette, and Bol and the others went forward while I put on the hatch, padlocked it, and withdrew the key.
I plunged my fire-red face in water, quickly shifted, and quitted the cabin, tired, burning hot, but very well satisfied with the morning’s work. Greaves was seated in a chair, and Miss Aurora walked the deck, in the shadow of the little awning, pacing the planks abreast of him. Her carriage, to use the old-fashioned word, had she been draped as the beauties of her person demanded, would have been lofty yet flowing, dignified yet easy and floating, graceful as the motions of a dancer who swims from the dance into walking; but the barbaric cut of her gown spoiled all. Never did I behold a woman’s dress so ridiculously shaped. It was a grief to an English eye, for in my country the girls’ costumes were just such as would have hit and sweetened by suggestion the form of Miss Aurora. Well do I remember the English girls’ style of 1815; the neckerchief with its peep of white breast, the girdle under the swelling bosom, the fair up and down fall of drapery thence. Never do I recall that costume, with its hat of chip or leghorn, without a fancy of the smell of buttercups and daisies, the flavor of cream, the scent of a milkmaid fresh from the udder.
I handed the key to Greaves. He put it in his pocket and gazed at me inquiringly.
“It’s all right, sir, to the bottom dollar,” said I.