I found nothing to connect Greaves with a home, with relatives, with friends--no miniature, no lock of hair, no memorial of ribbon or bauble. Never once had he hinted at any love passage. He’d speak of woman with coldness, though with respect, as the child of a woman. Had you walked him through King Solomon’s seraglio he’d have seen nothing worth choosing. Well, the yeast that had hissed to the plunge of his shape was his tombstone. He was bred a sailor, he had lived the life of a sailor, and was now gone the way of a sailor; yea, and true even in death was he unto the traditions of the sailor--for he had received the last toss, the sea had swallowed him up, and no man could swear that his name was as he had styled himself, nor affirm with conviction whose son he was. When I had made an end with the captain’s papers and effects I put on my cap, buttoned up my pea-coat, and went on deck. It was blowing a strong, fair wind. The brig still wore the canvas she had carried throughout the night. The sea ran high, it was much freckled with foam, and its frothing brows shone out like a hard light against the cold dark-green vapor to windward. Bol paced the deck, thickly clothed. He wore great boots, had a heavy fur cap on, and a fathom of shawl was coiled round his immensely thick throat. He fitted the picture of that pitching and storming brig as the brig fitted the picture of that swollen and foaming sea. There was no sun. The dark clouds rushed rapidly across the sky; they were of the soft blackness of the snow cloud; the bands of topsails, the square of the topgallant sail, of a light sick as the gleam of misty moonshine, fled from side to side athwart the flying sky of shadow. The sea stood up in walls of ivory to every plunge of the bows--I never before saw foam look so solid. Where the bubble and foam-bell of it were too remote for the eye, _there_ every ridge was like a cliff of marble. Bol appeared surprised to see me. He supposed I was turned in. “This is a wind to clap Staten Island in our wake.” “Potsblitz! as der Shermons say, dere vhas veight in dese seas too.” “Do you mean to live aft?” “In der landt of spoons?” said he, with a smile wrinkling his face till he was scarcely the same man. “Yaw. There is a cabin and bunk for your mattress. You are mate--first mate, entitled to live aft.” “I shtops vhere I vhas, Mr. Fielding. I vhas no mate.” “As much mate as I was.” “Vell, dot might be,” said he; then added, “No, you vhas mate in your last ship. I am bos’en. I belongs forwardt.” “I want a second mate. Send the men aft, will you.” He went into the waist and put his pipe to his lips. His roar was like the voice of a giant singing the tune of the wind in the rigging. The men knocked off the several jobs they were on and came aft.