CHAPTER IX.
I FIGHT VAN LAAR.
About the hour of four, that same afternoon, I followed Greaves out of his berth into the state cabin and living room. We had been closeted for an hour, and during that hour our discourse had related wholly to the voyage. I followed him into the cabin. There had been no change in the weather since the morning. The brig was rushing through the swollen seas under whole topsails and some fore-and-aft canvas, to keep her head straight, for now and again she would yaw widely with the swing of the surge, and, indeed, it needed two stout fellows at the wheel to keep the sheet of rushing wake astern of her a fairly straight line.
We had not entered the cabin five minutes when Van Laar descended the companion steps. It was four o’clock. Yan Bol had come on to the quarter-deck to relieve the mate until the hour of six, and Van Laar, descending the ladder, was rolling in a thrusting and sprawling walk to his berth, without taking the least notice of the captain and me, when Greaves stopped him.
“Van Laar, sit down. I have something to say to you.”
The Dutch mate rounded suddenly. The insipid and meaningless layers of fat which formed his face were quickened by an expression of surprise. He had pulled his cloth cap off on entering, and now worried it between his hands as he stared at Greaves. His mind worked slowly. Presently he gathered from the looks of Greaves that he was to expect something unpleasant, on which he said:
“I do not wish to sit down. Vy der doyvil should I sit down? Vot hov you to say, Captain Greaves?”
“You are already aware that I am dissatisfied with you,” said Greaves.
“’Ow vhas dot?”
“I desire no words. Enough if I tell you simply that you do not suit me.”
“Vy der doyvil did you engage me, den?”