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equence of the extreme heat of his cabin. The night was brilliantly starlit, and the air so clear that we could have easily distinguished a sail at a distance of two miles, had there been owe to see; but the light was not strong enough to enable me clearly to distinguish Brown's features, even when he was standing beside me, while the cabin lamp was turned low, so that there was not much light coming through the skylight. But when the old fellow fell into step by my side, and began to talk quite rationally about the heat below, the impossibility of sleeping, and his gratification at the fine breeze which we had fallen in with, and so on, I was completely thrown off my guard; for he appeared to be in precisely the condition that I had often previously seen him in, when he had talked rationally enough for a time, taken a little walk--as he was doing at that moment--and then, suddenly forgetting what he was conversing about, gone below and slept for several hours. All at once, as we were walking to and fro between the main rigging and the wheel grating, the old fellow halted, pulled off his cap, extracted a big bandana handkerchief from it, and proceeded to mop his head and face, from which--as in my own case--the perspiration was freely pouring. "Great snakes," he ejaculated, "but it is hot, and no mistake! The sweat's pourin' out o' me like water outen a sponge. I guess that's what's makin' me so all-fired thirsty. Where's the water cask? I'm boun' to have a drink. My tongue's so dry it's rattlin' agin my teeth! Can't ye hear it? Where's that there scuttle butt, I say?" "Better not drink direct from the cask, sir," I said, for Cunningham had strongly urged us all to drink nothing but filtered water, and even that with a dash of lime juice in it, during the extreme heat. "The filter stands on the sideboard, and there is an opened bottle of lime juice in the rack above it; you will find that very much cooler and more refreshing than the water from the scuttle butt. That stuff is really not fit to drink." "But I'm so tarnation thirsty that I must have a drink," he insisted, "and I'd rather drink outer the cask than go below. Why, man alive, that there cabin is like a oven!" "Oh," said I, glancing hastily round and noting that the weather seemed fine and settled, "if that is all I'll very soon slip down and fetch you up a drink! Bring yourself to an anchor here on the wheel grating, sir, while I go bel
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