'There is an unwholesome mind in his flabby face!' she exclaimed.
I could not forbear a laugh at this strong language in the little creature.
'And then his religion!' she continued. 'Does a truly pious nature talk as he does? I can understand professional religionists intruding their calling upon strangers; but I have always found sincerity in matters of opinion modest and reserved—I mean among what you call laymen. What right has this man to force upon those poor fellows forward the food that they are forbidden by their faith to eat?'
'Yes,' said I; 'that is a vile side of the man's nature, I must own; vile to you and me and to the poor Malays, I mean. But, surely, there must be sincerity too, or why should he bother himself?'
'It may be meanness,' said she: 'he wants to save his beef; meanness and that love of tyrannizing which is oftener to be found among the captains of your nation, Hugh, than mine!'
'Your nation!' said I, laughing. 'I claim you for Great Britain by virtue of your English speech. No pure Dane could talk your mother's tongue as you do. Spite of what you say, though, I believe the man sincere. Would he, situated as he is—two white men to eleven yellow-skins (for we and the boatmen must count ourselves out of it)—would he, I say, dare venture to arouse the passions—the religious passions—of a set of men who hail from the most treacherous community of people in the world, if he were not governed by some dream of converting them?—a fancy that were you to transplant it ashore, would be reckoned noble and of a Scriptural and martyr-like greatness.'
'That may be,' she answered; 'but he is going very wickedly to work, nevertheless, and it will not be his fault if those coloured sailors do not dangerously mutiny long before he shall have persuaded the most timid and doubting of them that pork is good to eat.'
'Yes,' said I gravely; for she spoke with a sort of impassioned seriousness that must have influenced me, even if I had not been of her mind. 'I, for one, should certainly fear the worst if he persists—and I don't doubt he will persist, if Abraham and the other boatman agree to remain with him; for then it will be four to eleven—desperate odds, indeed, though as an Englishman he is bound to underrate the formidableness of anything coloured. However,' said I, with a glance into the darkness over the side, 'do not doubt that we shall be transhipped long before any trouble happens. I shall endeavour to have a talk with Abraham before he decides. What he and Jacob then do, they will do with their eyes open.'
As I spoke these words, the Captain came up the ladder and approached us.
'Ha! Miss Nielsen,' he cried, 'were not you wise to put on that warm coat? All is ready below; but still let me hope that you will change your mind and occupy Mr. Jones's berth.'