half an hour. I welcomed her as calmly as I could: but I felt my voice
tremble and my heart throb. She told me the voyage tired her much; but it
was the last she should have to make. How strange, how hellish (God
forgive me for saying so!) it seems that _she_ should love _him._ But,
does she love him? Can she love him? Could she love him if she knew all?
Know him she shall before she marries him. For the present, be still, my
heart.

"She soon went below and left me desolate. I wandered all about the ship,
and, at last, I came upon the inseparables, Welch and Cooper. They were
squatted on the deck, and Welch's tongue was going as usual. He was
talking about this Wylie, and saying that, in all his ships, he had never
known such a mate as this; why, the captain was under his thumb, he then
gave a string of captains, each of whom would have given his mate a round
dozen at the gangway, if he had taken so much on him as this one does.

"'Grog!' suggested Cooper, in extenuation.

"Welch admitted Wylie was liberal with that, and friendly enough with the
men; but, still, he preferred to see a ship commanded by the captain, and
not by a lubber like Wylie.

"I expressed some surprise at this term, and said I had envied Wylie's
nerves in a gale of wind we encountered early in the voyage.

"The talking sailor explained, 'In course, he has been to sea afore this,
and weathered many a gale. But so has the cook. That don't make a man a
sailor. You ask him how to send down a to'-gallant yard or gammon a
bowsprit, or even mark a lead line, and he'll stare at ye like Old Nick,
when the angel caught him with the red-hot tongs, and questioned him out