Chapter 4 - Page 2

again, and received another wave of the glass in
reply.

He stood there then straining his eyes abstractedly in the direction of
the rock until it disappeared behind them in the gathering twilight. He
had been inspirited for the whole voyage; and the first thing he should
do when they arrived at Boston would be to buy a dress and a ring; and
when he came home he determined that his first business should be to
make an expedition to the island, and put a certain question to a
certain person whom he knew out there.

He was roused from his abstraction by the boatswain bawling out his
name, and asking if he was going to sleep there, and whether he wanted
something to wake him up. The order had been given to make all snug for
the night, as the breeze was freshening.

The watches had been set at noon, and the starboard and larboard watch
told off, as customary on the first day a vessel goes to sea. Salvé had
the middle watch; and by that time the sea was running high, and they
were plunging through the darkness under a double-reefed mainsail, the
moon every now and then clearing an open space in the storm--clouds that
were driving like smoke before it, so that he could fitfully distinguish
objects over the deck, even to the look-out man's looming figure out
upon the forecastle.

Upon the capstan bar sat a sailor in oilskin clothes, who had probably
been on shore the previous night and not closed his eyes, and who was
making great efforts to keep awake. His head, however, would still keep
nodding; and from time to time he stood up and tried to keep himself
warm by exercising his arms. He sang, or more often took up afresh upon
each recovery of consciousness a verse of a half-Swedish ballad about a
"girl so true," that he wished he then had by his side, for the time
without her seemed so long. Now and then the spray of a sea would bring
him more sharply to himself, but it did not last long; and so the ditty,
which was melancholy to the last degree, would begin afresh.

Salvé was far too restless to have any desire to sleep, and as he paced
to and fro by the fore-hatch, lost in his dreams, and listened to the
song, it seemed to him a most touching one.

The nodding sailor little thought that he was performing before a
deeply-moved audience.