I answered, "No, I am an Englishman, madam," feeling the blood warm in my face through the mere speaking with so delicate a beauty.
"I, too, am English!" she cried, in our own tongue.
"Indeed!" I exclaimed, transported out of myself by hearing this, and by perceiving how warm, real and living she was. "But, in the name of Heaven, how is it that you are alone upon this strange ship, amid these mysterious men?" for that question I could no more forbear asking right out than I could conceal the admiration in my eyes, whilst I felt no diffidence in talking, as I made no doubt the English language was unintelligible to the others.
She swiftly glanced at me, but did not answer. I took this as a hint, and was silent. And yet it did not seem that Vanderdecken or Van Vogelaar heeded us. They appeared as men sunk in deep abstraction, even whilst they ate and drank. Some meat was put before me; Prins offered me a cake, and, being hard set, I fell to. I found the meat salt, but sweet and tender enough, and turning to the mate asked him what it was.
"Antelope," he replied, "yonder," pointing to the other dish, "is buffalo."
"Sir," exclaimed Vanderdecken, with a wonderful stateliness in his manner, "be pleased to despise ceremony here. Such as our fare is, you are welcome. Take as you may require, and Prins will fill your cup as often as you need."
I bowed and thanked him.
"The wind blows hard, Imogene," said he, addressing the girl. "It storms directly along the path we would take. It is miserable," he continued, turning to me, "that a change of weather should come upon us just about those parts where the breeze freshened into this gale last night. But we'll force her to windward yet—hey, Herman?—though—though——" he looked at the lady he had named Imogene and halted abruptly in his speech, but I noticed he could not quickly clear his face of the passionate mad look that darkened it, though it did not qualify the paleness of the skin, but was like the shadow of a heavy storm-cloud passing over the upward-gazing features of a dead man.
The countenances of the mate and Prins darkened to his savage mood. May Heaven pardon me for the thought, but when I considered the bitter vexation of a head wind, and how this vessel was being blown dead away to leeward faster than any line-of-battle ship hove-to, I could not but secretly feel a sailor's sympathy with these unhappy persons, though that this would have been the case had Vanderdecken expressed with his tongue the fearful thoughts which he looked with his eyes I do not think possible, if I know myself at all.
There fell a silence among us, through which we could hear the dreary howling of the wind, the falls of heavy masses of water upon the decks, and the lamentable complaining of the whole fabric, though as these noises were chiefly in the hold the notes rose somewhat dulled. Presently, feeling it indecorous in me to sit silent, I asked the captain what his cargo was.