The words were no sooner uttered than the boat was tossing and whirling in
the caldron left by the passing ship.




Chapter V.



What country, Mends, is this?
Illyria, lady.

TWELFTH NIGHT.


Captain Truck cast an eye aloft to see if everything drew, as coolly as if
nothing out of the usual course had happened; he and his crew having,
seemingly, regarded the attempt to board them as men regard the natural
phenomena of the planets, or in other words, as if the ship, of which they
were merely parts, had escaped by her own instinct or volition. This habit
of considering the machine as the governing principle is rather general
among seamen, who, while they ease a brace, or drag a bowline, as the
coachman checks a rein, appear to think it is only permitting the creature
to work her own will a little more freely. It is true all _know_ better,
but none talk, or indeed would seem to _feel_, as if they thought
otherwise.

"Did you observe how the old barky jumped out of the way of those rovers