"This should delight my little Margaretha," said he, lifting the figure and examining it; "'tis as cunning a toy as ever I saw. I bought it at Batavia, from an old friend of mine, Meeuves Meindertszoom Bakker, who had purchased it of a sailor belonging to the company's ship, Revolutie, for eight ducats. 'Twill rejoice my child; you shall present it to her, Imogene. I would not sell it for five hundred dollars; 'tis worthy to be John Muller's work."
He ceased speaking, lifting his hand; then exclaimed, "Hark! how the wind continues to storm."
He gave the figure to the girl who returned it to her cabin.
In a few minutes he put down his pipe and bade Prins bring him his skin or fur cap, and then rose, impressing me as keenly as though I viewed him for the first time by the nobility of his stature, his great beard flowing to the waist, the sharp supernatural fires in his eyes as if the light there were living flames. In silence he quitted the cabin, acting like a man influenced by spells, without the governance of the logic of human behaviour.
CHAPTER XVII.
I TALK WITH MISS IMOGENE DUDLEY ABOUT THE DEATH SHIP.
Being in the way now of enjoying a talk with Imogene, the ridiculousness of the dress I was in struck me, and I asked Prins, who was clearing the table, whether my own clothes were yet dry. He answered they were hung up in the furnace near the cookhouse, by which I suppose he meant the caboose, and that when they were dry he would bring them to my cabin.
"In these things," said I, addressing Imogene in English, whilst I turned my head about to catch a sight of my tails, "I feel like a fool in a carnival. What ages this garb represents I cannot conceive, but it surely does not represent less than a century of fashion."
"And what must you think of my attire?" said she, seating herself in the captain's chair, which her beauty made a throne of in a breath, the light of her hair gilding it. "But all things are wonderful here," she added, with a half-glance at Prins, whose movements and manner as he removed the dishes from the table were as deaf and soulless as the behaviour of the figure that had just piped to us. "You know, of course, what ship this is?"