“All right, all right! Let me go! Put her on! I vhas quiet now, but after dis, if I vhas you, I vould hang myself.”
His voice was then muffled, as though he had been dragged or carried into his cabin, and a few minutes later Yan Bol came on deck, lifting his hair with one hand and wiping the sweat from under it with the other.
“He gifs too much trouble,” said he, with a massive shake of his head, “it vhas not right. He vhas a badt sailor, too. I could have told Captain Greaves dot before we sailed from Amsterdam. Van Laar put a ship ashore two years ago. He vhas too fat and lazy for der sea. He vhas ignorant, and has not a sailor’s heart in him.”
“I do not know what sort of a sailor he is,” said I, “but a more insulting son of a swab I never met in my life.”
“Dere’s a ship dot may take him,” said Bol, leveling a hand as big as a shovel at the sea.
“Mr. Bol, please to keep your eye upon her while I am below,” said I; “one needs to be wary in these waters.”
“Let me look at her,” said he, and he fetched the glass. “Dere vhas noting for dis brig to be afraid of in her,” said he, after a slow Dutch gaze and ruminating pause; “it vhas not all right, I belief, but vhat vhas wrong mit her vhas right for us.”
Jimmy passed with the cabin dinner from the galley. A minute later he arrived to report it served. I went below, and was about to sit down when I suddenly exclaimed:
“Hark, what is that?”
“Van Laar singing,” said Greaves.