We were now in the forecastle, and this reference to the action of the terrified crew of the Saracen, in the hearing of the seamen who overhung their hammocks, or squatted on their chests, smoking, alarmed me; so with a quickly uttered "Good-morning" addressed to them all, I sprang up the ladder and gained the deck. CHAPTER VI. WE SIGHT A SHIP. It was like coming out of a sepulchre to step from that forecastle on deck where the glorious sun was and the swaying shadows, and where the blue wind gushed in a soft breathing over the bulwark-rails, with weight enough in it to hold the canvas stirless, and to raise a gentle hissing alongside like the seething of champagne. I spied Vanderdecken on the poop and near him Imogene, so I hastened aft to greet the girl and salute the great bearded figure that nobly towered beside her. She looked fragrant and sweet as a white rose in the dewy morn, wore a straw hat turned up on one side and looped to stay there with a parti-coloured rosette, and though this riband was faded with age and the straw yellow and dull through keeping, the gear did suit her beauty most divinely, and I could have knelt and kissed her hand, so complete a Princess did she appear in the royal perfections of her countenance and shape. To turn from the sparkle of her violet eye, the rosiness of her lip, the life that teemed in the expression of her face, like a blushing light shining through fragile porcelain, to turn from her to the great silent figure near her, with piercing gaze directed over the taffrail, his beard trembling to the down-rush of air from the mizzen, was to obtain a proper contrast to enable you to realise in the aspect of that amazing person the terrible conditions of his existence and the enormous significance of his sentence. With a smile of pleasure at the sight of me, Imogene bade me good-morning, saying, "I am before you for the first time since you have been in the ship." "I was out of my cabin half-an-hour ago, perhaps longer," said I. "What, think you, I have been doing? Exploring the sailors' quarters and inspecting the kitchen." And I tossed up my hands and turned up my eyes that she might guess what I thought of those places. Then meeting Vanderdecken's gaze, which he had brought to bear upon me with a frowning roll of the eyes, I took off my hat, giving him a bow. He greeted me in his imperious stormy way, and asked me what I thought of his ship. I replied, "She is a very fine vessel, sir." "Did they lift the hatches to show the cargo to you?" he exclaimed. I answered smartly, "No," perceiving that he was aware I had been below in the fore-part. "How does my forecastle show to your English prejudice?" he said.