His lips were compressed; and when he gave the men a hand now and then, it was not a very willing one, and was generally accompanied by some bitter or sarcastic remark.

His nature since they last sailed from Arendal seemed to have turned to gall; and when the captain had casually mentioned in his letter home that he was not so well satisfied with him, he had had good reason for saying so.
There had been all sorts of unpleasantness between them; and if any discontent or difference between himself and the crew prevailed, Salve was sure to be at the bottom of it.

He had found a rancid salt-herring, set up on four legs with a tail, as he was walking on the poop one evening in the moonlight; and as complaints had been recently made about the food, a good deal of which had become worse than bad from the effects of the hot climate, he had at once attributed to Salve this pointed method of drawing his attention to the subject again.

It seemed almost as if he had some cause for bitterness against himself personally; and as he had always treated him with marked favour, he was at a loss to comprehend the reason for it.
With the exception of the captain, who had retained his seat at the after-end of the poop, Salve was soon the only human being to be seen on deck.

The whole crew had disappeared, and might have been found poring over their letters two and two, or singly, in the most out-of-the-way places, from the main and fore top even to the bowsprit end, where one had erected a pavilion for himself out of a fold of the hauled-down jib.
Captain Beck's letter, to judge from his gestures and half-audible exclamations, was not giving him the pleasure which he had anticipated.
His whole face, up to the top of his head, had become red as a lobster, and he sat now drumming with one hand on his knee, and casting an occasional fierce look over at Salve, in the attitude of a man beside himself with anger.