“‘_They descend thundering upon the planking, and the spectacle cannot reproduce itself. In my capacity of valet to the captain, whom I have well and beautifully plied with drink since the rising of the sun (behold me also, Ganymede!) I pass throughout observing, it may be not a little. They ask orders. There is none to give them. One sits upon the edge of the vessel and chants interminably the lugubrious “Roule Britannia”—to endure how lomg_?’” “That was me! On’y ’twas ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’—which I hate more than any stinkin’ tune I know, havin’ dragged too many nasty little guns to it. Yes, Number One told me off to that for ten minutes; an’ I ain’t musical, you might say.” “_‘Then come marines, half-dressed, seeking vainly through this “tohu-bohu_”’ (that’s one of his names for the _Archimandrite_, Mr. Pyecroft), ‘_for a place whence they shall not be dislodged. The captain, heavy with drink, rolls himself from his hammock. He would have his people fire the Maxims. They demand which Maxim. That to him is equal. The breech-lock indispensable is not there. They demand it of one who opens a barrel of pork, for this Navy feeds at all hours. He refers them to the cook, yesterday my master_—’” “Yes, an’ Retallick nearly had a fit. What a truthful an’ observin’ little Antonio we ’ave!” “‘_It is discovered in the hands of a boy who says, and they do not rebuke him, that he has found it by hazard_.’ I’m afraid I haven’t translated quite correctly, Mr. Pyecroft, but I’ve done my best.” “Why, it’s beautiful—you ought to be a Frenchman—you ought. You don’t want anything o’ _me_. You’ve got it all there.” “Yes, but I like your side of it. For instance. Here’s a little thing I can’t quite see the end of. Listen! ‘_Of the domain which Britannia rules by sufferance, my gross captain, knew nothing, and his Navigator, if possible, less. From the bestial recriminations and the indeterminate chaos of the grand deck, I ascended—always with a whisky-and-soda in my hands—to a scene truly grotesque. Behold my captain in plain sea, at issue with his Navigator! A crisis of nerves due to the enormous quantity of alcohol which he had swallowed up to then, has filled for him the ocean with dangers, imaginary and fantastic. Incapable of judgment, menaced by the phantasms of his brain inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of the Hesperides beneath his keel—vigias innumerable.’_ I don’t know what a vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft. _‘He creates shoals sad and far-reaching of the mid-Atlantic!’_ What was that, now?” “Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw ’is cap down an’ danced on it. Danby was quartermaster. They ’ad a tea-party on the bridge. It was the old man’s contribution. Does he say anything about the leadsmen?”