. In addition another dory,--the one you
picked me up in--was lashed to the top of the deck house.

"They'd mighty near have a boat apiece," I thought, and went forward.

Just outside the forecastle hatch I paused. Someone below was singing in
a voice singularly rich in quality. The words and the quaintness of the
minor air struck me immensely and have clung to my memory like a burr
ever since.

"'Are you a man-o'-war or a privateer,' said he.
_Blow high, blow low, what care we!_
'Oh, I am a jolly pirate, and I'm sailing for my fee.'
_Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e."_

I stepped to the companion. The voice at once ceased. I descended.

A glimmer of late afternoon struggled through the deadlights. I found
myself in a really commodious space,--extending far back of where the
forward bulk-heads are usually placed,--accommodating rows and row of
bunks--eighteen of them, in fact. The unlighted lamp cast its shadow on
wood stained black by much use, but polished like ebony from the
continued friction of men's garments. I wish I could convey to you the
uncanny effect, this--of dropping from the decks of a miniature craft to
the internal arrangements of a square-rigged ship. It was as though,
entering a cottage door, you were to discover yourself on the floor of
Madison Square Garden. A fresh sweet breeze of evening sucked down the
hatch. I immediately decided on the forecastle. Already it was being
borne in on me that I was little more than a glorified bo's'n's mate. The
situation suited me, however. It enabled me to watch the course of events
more safely, less exposed to the danger of recognition.

I stood for a moment at the foot of the companion accustoming my eyes to
the gloom. After a moment, with a shock of surprise, I made out a shining
pair of bead-points gazing at me unblinkingly from the shadow under the
bitts. Slowly the man defined himself, as a shape takes form in a fog. He
was leaning forward in an attitude of attention, his elbows resting on
his knees, his forearms depending between them, his head thrust out. I
could detect no faintest movement of eyelash, no faintest sound of
breathing. The stillness was portentous. The creature was exactly like a
wax figure, one of the sort you meet in corridors of cheap museums and
for a moment mistake for living beings. Almost I thought to make out the
customary grey dust lying on the wax of his features.

I am going to tell you more of this man