I followed my cousin to his cabin. He had entered before me, and when I arrived I found him alone.
‘I shan’t call you Marian any more,’ said he. ‘Suppose I should be overheard? And I’ll not call you Simon either. Why didn’t you ship as Jack or Bill? Take now what you want, and when you have shifted give me your soiled clothes and I’ll get them washed.’
He raised the lid of his chest, and I took a flannel shirt and such other apparel as I needed.
‘You’ll find that pilot coat melting wear a few degrees further south,’ said he. ‘Here’s a serge jacket. Will it fit you?’
I put it on, then rolled the clothes into a bundle and stayed to talk.
‘Will, does anyone on board suspect I’m a woman?’
‘I don’t know of any one,’ he answered; ‘what’s put that into your head?’
‘Nothing. I don’t want to be found out. Depend upon it, if the doctor and the others discovered that I was a girl, they’d suspect me of some desperate purpose and send me out of the ship at the first chance.’
‘That’s likely,’ said Will, cutting up a piece of tobacco to fill his pipe with; ‘but who’d imagine you’re a girl? You walk like a man and begin to roll about like a sailor. You lug your basket of foul dishes forward in true bottle-washer fashion.’
‘Not so loud,’ said I, looking toward the door.