Only let thy eye be keen, thy ear quick, and thy hand ready, my Hollander, and stand by me when I call on thee." More I could not get out of him.

When I spoke of it to Ludar afterwards, he said: "Maybe the little antic is right.

Yet they are too sorry a crew, and too small to do mischief.

They suspect us of carrying treasure aboard, and your friend the captain, I take it, is the roundest villain of them all." I vowed the captain was no friend of mine; yet I believed him honest.
But as for the crew, it came to my mind then what the drunken fellow had blabbed out the first night; and I said it was like enough to be true.
That afternoon I rose from my sick-bed and came on deck.

I remember to this hour the joy of that afternoon.
The day was bright and fair; land was nowhere to be seen; only a stretch of blue-green water through which the _Misericorde_ spanked with a light breeze at her stern.