‘Not yet,’ I answered.
He called through the skylight to Wilkins, and told him to put some biscuit and tea and cold meat upon the table. ‘I have made my meal,’ said he, contriving one of his extraordinary bows as he addressed Miss Temple; ‘and so, I hope, mem, you’ll excuse my presence below. Eat hearty, both of ye, I beg. There’s no call to stint yourselves, and I’m sorry I can’t put anything more tempting afore ye, as Jack says.’
We at once descended, both of us being anxious to get the meal, such as it might be, over.
‘Why is he repeatedly saying, “as Jack says?”’ asked Miss Temple.
‘Ah!’ I exclaimed,‘and why does he stare so? Yet, on my word, he seems an exceedingly good-natured fellow. I assure you we might have fallen into worse hands. No man could make a homeward-bound ship to rise up out of the sea or signal our whereabouts to the Countess Ida when she is leagues and leagues out of sight; but another captain might not have shown half the friendly concern this poor eccentric creature exhibits in our comfort.’
She agreed with me, but quickly dropped the subject as something distasteful, and spoke of her disappointment, and of the strangeness of meeting a small boat in the middle of such an ocean as we were sailing through. By some trick above my comprehension, she had contrived to smooth out her dress, insomuch that a deal of its castaway aspect had left it. She had also manœuvred in some fashion with the feather in her hat; and I told her, as she sat opposite me, that she looked as fresh as though she had just left her cabin in the Indiaman.
‘Youth must always triumph,’ I said, ‘if it be but fairly treated. Sleep has made your former self dominant again: but I will reserve all my compliments until I am able to pull my hat off to you ashore and say good-bye.’
She shot a glance at me under her long fringes, but held her peace.
The tea was so vile that I called to Wilkins, who stood on the quarter-deck, to procure us some coffee if there were any aboard; and in a few minutes he returned with a sailor’s hook-pot full of it from the galley. This Miss Temple seemed able to sip without a face of aversion. It vexed me to see her imperilling her delicate white teeth with the hard fare that was sheer forecastle stuff, and bad at that; but it was not for me to give orders, nor was I willing to protract our sitting by inquiring if there was other food aboard. Besides, every hour in such weather as this might provide us with the opportunity we hungered for, to escape into some homeward-bound ship with a cabin capable of affording endurable entertainment.
We rose from the table, and regained the deck. The moment my head showed above the companion-way, the captain called to me hastily. There was a look of disorder in his countenance that immediately excited my wonder; there was the alacrity of fear in his manner; he could address me now without a prolonged stare and his usual tardy emergence of mind.