rms-room,
but there were weapons enough left, and they stared at them like yokels
in a booth. I showed them the cook-house and the forecastle, where the
deck was still littered with clothes, and chests, and hammocks; and,
after carrying them aft to the cabins, gave them a sight of the hold. I
never saw men more amazed. They filled the vessel with their
exclamations. They never offered to touch anything, being too much awed,
but stepped about with their heads uncovered, as quietly as they could,
as though they had been in a crypt, and the influence of strange and
terrifying memorials was upon them. I also showed them the clothes I had
come away from the _Laughing Mary_ in; and, that I might submit such an
aspect to them as should touch their sympathies, I whipped off the cloak
and put on my own pilot-cloth coat.

There being nothing more to see, I led them to the cook-room, and there
brewed a great hearty bowl of brandy-punch, which I seasoned with lemon,
sugar, and spices into as relishable a draught as my knowledge in that
way could compass, and, giving every man a pannikin, bade him dip and
welcome, myself first drinking to them with a brief speech, yet not so
brief but that I broke down towards the close of it, and ended with a
dry sob or two.

They would have been unworthy their country and their calling not to
have been touched by my natural manifestation of emotion; besides, the
brandy was an incomparably fine spirit, and the very perfume of the
steaming bowl was sufficient to stimulate the kindly qualities of
sailors who had been locked up for months in a greasy old ship, with no
diviner smells about than the stink of the try-works. The captain,
standing up, called upon his men to drink to me, promising me that he
was very glad to have fallen in with my schooner, and then, looking at
the others, made a sign, whereupon they all fixed their eyes upon me and
drank as one man, every one emptying his pot and inverting it as a
proof, and fetching a rousing sigh of satisfaction.

This ceremony ended, I began my story, beginning with the loss of the
_Laughing Mary_, and proceeding step by step. I told them of the dead
body of Mendoza, but said nothing about the Frenchman and the mate, and
the Portugal boatswain, lest I should make them afraid of the vessel,
and so get no help to work her. As to acquainting them with my recovery
of Tassard, after his stupor of eight-and-forty years, I should have
been mute on that head