'A noble sea-parlour, Helga!' said I, laughing.
'It is better than the raft,' she answered.
'Ay, indeed! but for all that not so good as to render us unwilling to leave this little lugger. You will never be able to sleep in one of these holes?'
'Oh yes,' she answered, with a note of cheerfulness in her voice; 'but I hope there may be no occasion. I shall not want to sleep till the night comes, and before it comes we may be in another ship, journeying home—to your home, I mean,' she added, with a sigh.
'And not more mine than yours, so long as it will please you to make it yours. And now,' said I, 'that we may be as comfortable as possible, where are our friends' toilet conveniences? Their washbasin is, no doubt, the ocean over the side, and I suspect a little lump of grease, used at long intervals, serves them for the soap they need. But there is plenty of refreshment to be had out of a salt-water rinsing of the face. Stay you here, and I will hand you down what is to be found.'
I regained the deck, and asked one of the men to draw me a bucket of salt-water. I then asked Abraham for a piece of sailcloth to serve as a towel.
'Sailcloth!' he cried. 'I'll give ye the real thing,' and, sliding open a locker in the stern sheets, he extracted a couple of towels.
'Want any soap?' said he.
'Soap!' cried I. 'Have you such a thing?'
'Why, what d'ye think we are?' called the sour-faced man Tommy, who was kneeling at the little stove and blowing into it to kindle some chips of wood. 'How's a man to shave without soap?'