It was but scraps that
reached me: how he "filled her on the starboard tack,"
and how "it came up sudden out of the nor'-nor'-west,"
and "there she was, high and dry." Sometimes he would
appeal to one of the men--"That was how it was, Jack?"-
-and the man would reply, "That was the way of it,
Captain Trent." Lastly, he started a fresh tide of
popular sympathy by enunciating the sentiment, "Damn
all these Admiralty Charts, and that's what I say!"
From the nodding of heads and the murmurs of assent
that followed, I could see that Captain Trent had
established himself in the public mind as a gentleman
and a thorough navigator: about which period, my sketch
of the four men and the canary-bird being finished, and
all (especially the canary-bird) excellent likenesses,
I buckled up my book and slipped from the saloon.
Little did I suppose that I was leaving Act I. Scene 1
of the drama of my life; and yet the scene--or rather
the captain's face--lingered for some time in my
memory. I was no prophet, as I say; but I was
something else--I was an observer; and one thing I
knew--I knew when a man was terrified.
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