"Now, Mr. Portlack," said he, in his harsh, intemperate voice, yet intending nothing but civility, as I could judge, "get you to your supper, sir; eat hearty, and you can make as free with the liquor as your common sense thinks prudent."
I was hungry, having tasted no food since the meal of beef and biscuit which had been set before me when I was first brought on board; nevertheless I entered the cabin and took my place with some diffidence. I felt a sort of embarrassment in eating alone and helping myself—perhaps because of the shore-going appearance of the interior; it was like making free in a gentleman's dining-room, the host being absent. Tom, the nigger boy, waited upon me. He gave me a dish of excellent soup, and I fared sumptuously on spiced beef, some sort of dried fish that was excellent eating, potatoes, beans, fruit, and the like. The fruit was fresh enough to make me understand that the vessel was but recently from port. There were several kinds of wines in decanters upon the table; but two glasses of sherry sufficed me, though two such glasses of sherry I had never before drank. It might be that I was no judge, but to my palate the flavor of that amber-colored wine was exquisite.
The negro boy stood near waiting and watching me intently in the intervals of his business. Had the skylight been closed I should have put some questions to him, but the regular passage of the shadows of the two Spaniards upon the glass of the skylight as they walked the deck, warned me to be very wary. The change, not indeed from an open boat, but from the decks and the cabin of the Ocean Ranger to this interior, with its pictures, mirrors, its handsomely equipped and most hospitable table, was great indeed, and as I looked about me I found it difficult to realize the experience I was passing through. I could now tell by the weight of the fork and spoon which I handled that the plate which glittered upon the white damask cloth was solid silver. There could be no doubt whatever that the furniture of a drawing-room or of a boudoir had gone to the equipment of this cabin. Nothing seemed to fit, nothing had that air of oceanic fixity which you look for in sea-going decorations. But a quality of tawdriness stole into the general appearance through contrast of the gilt, the looking glasses, the pictures, the velvet, with the plain, worn sides of the vessel, the rude cabin beams, and the gray and even grimy ceiling or upper deck. I asked the negro boy if he spoke English.
"Yes, massa," said he, "I speak English, nuffin else, tank de Lord."
"Were you shipped at Cadiz?"
"Yes sah."
"I suppose they found you cruising about on the look-out for a job."
He showed his teeth and smiled broadly and blandly, in silence upturning his dusky eyes to the skylight. It was no business of mine to question him, but I thought it as likely as not that he had run from some American vessel, for it was hard to imagine that a lad who was undoubtedly a Yankee negro, and who I might fully believe was without a word of Spanish, would be idling in Cadiz.
I was about to go on deck when the boy said to me, "Do yah know where yaw've to sleep?"