s of the
forecastle were hard at work in them whilst they viewed me. They looked
a queer company: two were negroes, the others pale-faced bearded men,
wrapped up in clothes to the aspect of scarecrows. The fellow who
steered had a face as long as a wet hammock, and it was lengthened yet
to the eye by a beard like a goat's hanging at the extremity of his
chin.

He stood up--a tall, lank figure, with legs like a pair of
compasses--and hailed me afresh, but the high swell, regular as the
swing of a pendulum, interposed its brow between him and me, so that at
one moment he was a sharply-lined figure against the sky of the horizon,
and the next he and his boat and crew were sheer gone out of sight, and
this made an exchange of sentences slow and troublesome.

"Say, master," he sung out, "what d'ye say the schooner's name is?"

"The _Boca del Dragon_," I replied.

"And who are _you_, matey?"

"An English sailor who has been cast away on an island of ice," I
answered, talking very shortly that the replies might follow the
questions before the swell sank him.

"Ay, ay," says he, "that's very well; but _when_ was you cast away,
bully?"

I gave him the date.

"That's not a month ago," cried he.

"It's long enough, whatever the time," said I.

Here the crew fell a-talking, turning from one another to stare at me,
and the negroes' eyes showed as big as saucers in the dismay of their
regard.

"See, here, master," sung out the long man, "if you han't been cast away
more than a month, how come you clothed as men went dressed a century
sin', hey?"

The reason of their misgivings flashed upon me. It was not so much the
schooner as my appearance. The truth was, my clothes having been wetted,
I had ever since been wearing such thick garments as I met with in the
cabin, keeping my legs warm with jackboots, and I had become so used to
the garb that I forgot I had it on. You will judge, then, that I must
have presented a figure very nicely calculated to excite the wonder and
apprehension of a body of men whose superstitious instincts were already
sufficiently fluttered by the appearance of the schooner, when I tell
you that, in addition to the jackboots and a great fur cap, my costume
was formed of a red plush waistcoat laced with silver, purple breeches,
a coat of frieze with yellow braiding and huge cuffs, and the cloak that
I had taken from the body of Mendoza.

"Captain," cried I, "if so be you are the captain, in the n