“I said nothing more at the time, knowing it to be the one which Mrs. Catherton had formerly occupied, and the mulatto, by his manner, seemed quite as well satisfied to be rid of the subject. In a few moments more, the sultan and his attendants went up on the poop, when I found the ship decked out in all the flags she could muster, and the crew rigged in regular liberty trim. We gave his mightiness nine cheers and a salute of twenty guns when he left: the last sight which I saw through the smoke, being the eunuch’s black face, looming, like a fiend’s, out of the barge, from under his checked turban. “As soon as the men shifted and turned to again, I went down into the cabins, when, lo! the doors of the after one were closed and locked as before. I thought this a good chance to fall regularly foul of the steward, when the fellow closed my mouth at once, by saying in a submissive way, that it was Captain Catherton’s orders, after his wife’s death, that the doors should be kept closed. Of course, I could say no more. “We went on with our work aloft, and being strong-handed, after taking in a few sheep and goats, were ready to go to sea by meridian, when in the very noon-day glare and piercing heat of the sun, the Soliman Shah, the Arab corvette, changed her berth also, finding the little strait too hot for her at last, with ten deaths on board of her the night previous, and as many more new cases in her sick bay. “However, new life seemed to have inspired our men. They worked with a will, notwithstanding that the terrific rays of the sun beaming upon the awnings, or reflected from a thousand points of the rugged rocks, made the gap like a gigantic oven. The land-wind was rising when the captain came off, and the men, in running up the boats for the night, broke out into a hearty song, the chorus of which opened the Arab’s eyes and did one’s soul good to hear, as if the prospect of getting to sea at last made them set the blue cholera itself, and all other evils which menaced the ship, at defiance. There was another meaning in this, in connection with what I had overheard the night before, which caused me to look narrowly at the face of old Charley who started the song, and those of one or two of the others, to see how far they were to be trusted, or feared at a pinch; when suddenly averting my eyes I saw that Catherton, who stood on the poop, was watching me narrowly, though he turned away the moment his eyes met mine, gazing, with a frown on his brow, from the ship to the frigate, as if something in the clamorous notes of the men displeased him. It struck me that, whatever his plans were, carrying it off in this way must seem natural enough to the Arabs, accustomed as they were to the ways of English seamen. He said nothing, however, even after listening attentively to my report of the Sultan’s visit, turning the conversation upon the plan for bringing Zuma off to the ship.