Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: Google Books
https://books.google.com/books?id=OsUsAAAAYAAJ
(Princeton University)
Across the Salt Seas.
Dreams he of cutting foreign throats, of breaches, ambuscadoes,Spanish blades; of healths five fathoms deep.--Shakespeare.
"Phew!" said the captain of La Mouche Noire, as he came up to mewhere I paced the deck by the after binacle. "Phew! It is a devil inits death agonies. What has the man seen and known? Fore Gad! he makesme shudder!"
Then he spat to leeward--because he was a sailor; also, because he wasa sailor, he squinted into the compass box, then took off his leathercap and wiped the warm drops from his forehead with the back of hishand.
"Death agonies!" I said. "So! it is coming to that. From what?Drinking, old age, or----"
"Both, and more. Yet, when I shipped him at Rotterdam, whowould have thought it! Old and reverend-looking, eh, Mr. Crespin?White haired--silvery. I deemed him some kind of a minister--yet, now,hearken to him!"
And as he spoke he went to the hatchway, bent his head and shouldersover it, and beckoned me to come and do likewise; which gesture Iobeyed.
Then I heard the old man's voice coming forth from the cabin wherethey had got him, the door of it being open for sake of air, because,in this tossing sea, the ports and scuttles were shut fast--heard himscreaming, muttering, chuckling and laughing; calling of healths andtoasts; dying hard!
"The balustrades!" he screamed. "Look to them. See! Three men, theirhands stretched out, peering down into the hall; fingers touching.God!"--he whispered this, yet still we heard--"how can dead men standthus together, gazing over, glancing into dark corners, eyes rolling?See how yellow the mustee's eyes are! But still, all dead! Dead! Dead!Dead! Yet there they stand, waiting for us to come in from the garden.Ha! quick--the passado--one--two--in--out--good! through his midriff.Ha! Ha! Ha!" and he laughed hideously, then went on: "The worms willhave a full meal. Or"--after a pause, and hissing this: "Was he deadbefore? Hast run a dead man through?"
"Like this all day long," the captain muttered in my ear, "from thedawn. And now the sun is setting; see how its gleams light up thehills inland. God's mercy! I hope he dies ere long. I want not hishowlings through my ship all night. Mr. Crespin," and he laid his handon my arm, "will you go down to him, to service me? You are agentleman. Maybe can soothe him. He is one, too. Will you?"
I shrugged my shoulders and hitched my sea cloak tighter round me;then I said:
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