Captain Luke evidently tried to make up for the mate's surliness; and he really was very pleasant indeed--telling me stories about the Coast, and giving me good advice about guarding against sickness there, and showing such an interest in my prospects with the palm-oil people, and in my welfare generally, that I was still more inclined to think that my scare about the shackles was only foolishness from first to last. He seemed to be really pleased when he found that I was not seasick, and interested when I told him how well I knew the sea and the management of small craft from my sailing in the waters about Nantucket every summer for so many years; and then we got to talking about the Coast again and about my outfit for it, which he said was a very good one; and he especially commended me--instead of laughing at me, as I was afraid he would--for having brought along such a lot of quinine. Indeed, the quinine seemed to make a good deal of an impression on him, for he turned to the mate and said: "Do you hear that, George? Mr. Stetworth has with him a whole case of quinine--enough to serve a ship's company through a cruise." And the mate rumbled out, as he got up from the table and started for the deck, that quinine was a damned good thing. We waited below until the second mate came down, to whom the captain introduced me with his regular formula: "Mr. Roger Stetworth, let me make you acquainted with Mr. Martin Bowers." He was a young fellow, of no more than my own age, and I took a fancy to him at sight--for he not only shook my hand heartily but he looked me squarely in the eyes, and that is a thing I like a man to do. It seemed to me that my being there was a good deal of a puzzle to him; and he also took my measure, but quite frankly--telling me when he had looked me over that if I knew how to steer I'd be a good man to have at the wheel in a gale. The captain brought out a bottle of his favorite arrack, and he and I had a glass together--in which, as I thought rather hard, Bowers was not given a chance to join us--and then we went on deck and walked up and down for a while, smoking our pipes and talking about the weather and the prospects for the voyage. And it all went so easily and so pleasantly that I couldn't help laughing a little to myself over my scare. I turned in early, for I was pretty well tired after so lively a day; but when I got into my bunk I could not get to sleep for a long while--although the bunk was a good one and the easy motion of the brig lulled me--for the excitement I was in because my voyage fairly was begun. I slipped through my mind all that had happened to me that day--from my meeting with Captain Luke in the forenoon until there I was, at nine o'clock at night, fairly out at sea; and I was so pleased with the series of lucky chances which had put me on my way so rapidly that my one mischance--my scare about the shackles--seemed utterly absurd.