Behold my captain in plain sea, at
issue with his Navigator! A crisis of nerves due to the enormous quantity
of alcohol which he had swallowed up to then, has filled for him the ocean
with dangers, imaginary and fantastic. Incapable of judgment, menaced by
the phantasms of his brain inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of the
Hesperides beneath his keel--vigias innumerable.'_ I don't know what a
vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft. _'He creates shoals sad and far-reaching of the
mid-Atlantic!'_ What was that, now?"
"Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw 'is cap down
an' danced on it. Danby was quartermaster. They 'ad a tea-party on the
bridge. It was the old man's contribution. Does he say anything about the
leadsmen?"
"Is this it? _'Overborne by his superior's causeless suspicion, the
Navigator took off the badges of his rank and cast them at the feet of my
captain and sobbed. A disgusting and maudlin reconciliation followed. The
argument renewed itself, each grasping the wheel, crapulous'_ (that means
drunk, I think, Mr. Pyecroft), _'shouting. It appeared that my captain
would chenaler'_ (I don't know what that means, Mr. Pyecroft) _'to the
Cape. At the end, he placed a sailor with the sound'_ (that's the lead, I
think) _'in his hand, garnished with suet.'_ Was it garnished with suet?"
"He put two leadsmen in the chains, o' course! He didn't know that there
mightn't be shoals there, 'e said.
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