Chapter 17

I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam'd amazement.

TEMPEST.

If Captain Truck distrusted the situation of his own ship when he saw that
the mate had changed her course, he liked it still less after he was on
board, and had an opportunity to form a more correct judgment. The current
had set the vessel not only to the southward, but in-shore, and the send
of the ground-swell was gradually, but inevitably, heaving her in towards
the land. At this point the coast was more broken than at the spot where
the Dane had been wrecked, some signs of trees appearing, and rocks
running off in irregular reefs into the sea. More to the south, these
rocks were seen without the ship, while directly astern they were not half
a mile distant. Still the wind was favourable, though light and baffling,
and Mr. Leach had got up every stitch of canvas that circumstances would
at all allow; the lead, too, had been tried, and the bottom was found to
be a hard sand mixed with rocks, and the depth of the water such as to
admit of anchoring. It was a sign that Captain Truck did not absolutely
despair after ascertaining all these facts, that he caused Mr. Saunders to
be summoned; for as yet, none of those who had been in the boats had
breakfasted.

"Step this way, Mr. Steward," said the captain; "and report the state of
the coppers. You were rummaging, as usual, among the lockers of yonder
unhappy Dane, and I desire to know what discoveries you have made! You
will please to recollect, that on all public expeditions of this nature,
there must be no peculation or private journal kept. Did you see any
stock-fish?"

"Sir, I should deem this ship disgraced by the admission into her pantry
of such an article, sir. We have tongues and sounds in plenty, Captain
Truck, and no gentleman that has such diet, need ambition a stock-fish!"

"I am not quite of your way of thinking; but the earth is not made of
stock-fish. Did you happen to fall in with any butter?"

"Some, sir, that is scarcely fit to slush a mast with, and I do think, one
of the most atrocious cheeses, sir, it was ever my bad fortune to meet
with. I do not wonder the Africans left the wreck."

"You followed their example, of course, Mr. Saunders, and left the
cheese."

"I followed my own judgment, sir, for I would not stay in a ship with such
a cheese, Captain Truck, sir, even to have the honour of serving under so
great a commander as yourself. I think it no wonder that vessel was
wrecked! Even the sharks would abandon her. The very thoughts of her
impurities, sir, make me feel unsettled in the stomach."

The