When we had breakfasted Captain Greaves said: “Will you smoke a pipe with me in my cabin?” “With much pleasure,” I answered. “First, let me go on deck,” said he, “to take a look around. It is Yan Bol’s watch and I cannot trust Van Laar to see that the deck is relieved even when it is his own turn to come below. Bol is my carpenter, bo’sun, and sailmaker. He stands a watch; but that sort of men who live in the forecastle and eat and drink with the sailors are seldom useful on the quarter-deck. Yet here am I talking gravely on such matters to a man who knows more about the sea than I do.” With that he stepped on deck. I kept my chair and talked with Galloon until Greaves returned. He then conducted me to his cabin. It was a large cabin, at least three times the size of the berth I had occupied during the night. It was on the starboard quarter, well lighted and cozily furnished. Here was to be felt at its fullest the heave of the brig as she swept pitching over the high seas. Whenever she stooped her stern the roaring waters outside foamed about our ears. The kick of the rudder thrilled in small shocks through this part of the fabric, and you heard the hard grind of the straining wheel ropes in their leading blocks as the steersman put his helm up or down. Captain Greaves took a canister of tobacco from a shelf and handed me a pipe. We filled and smoked. He bade me lay upon a locker and himself sat in his sleeping shelf or bunk, which, being without a top and standing at the height of a knee from the deck, provided a comfortable seat. We discoursed awhile on divers matters relating to the profession of the sea. He asked me to examine his quadrant, his chronometer (which he said was the work of the maker who had manufactured the watch that Captain Cook had taken with him on his last voyage), his charts, of which he had about a score in a canvas bag, and certain volumes on navigation. These things I examined with considerable professional interest. While I looked his eye was never off me. He appeared to be deeply ruminating, and he smoked with an odd motion of his jaw as though he talked to himself. When I was once more seated upon the locker he said: “I shall cease to call you mister. What need is there for formality between two men who have saved each other’s life?” “No need whatever.” “Fielding,” said he, looking and speaking very gravely, “you have greatly occupied my thoughts since you returned to consciousness yesterday, and since I discovered that you were not a half-hanged pirate or smuggler, but a gentleman and an English sailor after my own heart. I mean to tell you a very curious story, and when I have told you that story I intend to make a proposal to you. You shall hear what errand this brig is bound on. You shall learn to what part of the world I am carrying her, and I believe you will say that you have never heard of a more romantic nor of a more promising undertaking.”