Bol paced the deck, thickly clothed. He wore great boots, had a heavy fur cap on, and a fathom of shawl was coiled round his immensely thick throat. He fitted the picture of that pitching and storming brig as the brig fitted the picture of that swollen and foaming sea. There was no sun. The dark clouds rushed rapidly across the sky; they were of the soft blackness of the snow cloud; the bands of topsails, the square of the topgallant sail, of a light sick as the gleam of misty moonshine, fled from side to side athwart the flying sky of shadow. The sea stood up in walls of ivory to every plunge of the bows—I never before saw foam look so solid. Where the bubble and foam-bell of it were too remote for the eye, there every ridge was like a cliff of marble.
Bol appeared surprised to see me. He supposed I was turned in.
“This is a wind to clap Staten Island in our wake.”
“Potsblitz! as der Shermons say, dere vhas veight in dese seas too.”
“Do you mean to live aft?”
“In der landt of spoons?” said he, with a smile wrinkling his face till he was scarcely the same man.
“Yaw. There is a cabin and bunk for your mattress. You are mate—first mate, entitled to live aft.”
“I shtops vhere I vhas, Mr. Fielding. I vhas no mate.”
“As much mate as I was.”
“Vell, dot might be,” said he; then added, “No, you vhas mate in your last ship. I am bos’en. I belongs forwardt.”