ere were in with her a couple of
fine children, one of whom I guessed to be a boy of maybe some five
years, and the second a girl, scarce able to do more than toddle. At this
I turned and asked Mistress Madison whether these were her cousins; but
in the next moment I remembered that they could not be; for, as I knew,
the captain had been dead some seven years; yet it was the woman in the
galley who answered my question; for she turned and, with something of a
red face, informed me that they were hers, at which I felt some surprise;
but supposed that she had taken passage in the ship with her husband; yet
in this I was not correct; for she proceeded to explain that, thinking
they were cut off from the world for the rest of this life, and falling
very fond of the carpenter, they had made it up together to make a sort
of marriage, and had gotten the second mate to read the service over
them. She told me then, how that she had taken passage with her mistress,
the captain's wife, to help her with her niece, who had been but a child
when the ship sailed; for she had been very attached to them both, and
they to her. And so she came to an end of her story, expressing a hope
that she had done no wrong by her marriage, as none had been intended.
And to this I made answer, assuring her that no decent-minded man could
think the worse of her; but that I, for my part, thought rather the
better, seeing that I liked the pluck which she had shown. At that she
cast down the soup ladle, which she had in her fist, and came towards me,
wiping her hands; but I gave back, for I shamed to be hugged again, and
before Mistress Mary Madison, and at that she came to a stop and laughed
very heartily; but, all the same, called down a very warm blessing upon
my head; for which I had no cause to feel the worse. And so I passed on
with the captain's niece.

Presently, having made the round of the hulk, we came aft again to the
poop, and discovered that they were heaving once more upon the big rope,
the which was very heartening, proving, as it did, that the ship was
still a-move. And so, a little later, the girl left me, having to attend
to her aunt. Now whilst she was gone, the men came all about me, desiring
news of the world beyond the weed-continent, and so for the next hour I
was kept very busy, answering their questions. Then the second mate
called out to them to take another heave upon the rope, and at that they
turned to the capstan, and I with