"
"It is not necessary."
"Nevertheless," I urged, "they can be preparing breakfast for you,
up at the house, while you and your friends are making ready to come
ashore."
"We have broken our fast," he answered; "and we are quite ready, if
you will be so good as to guide us."
He stepped to the hatchways and called down, announcing simply that
the voyage was ended: and in the dusk there I saw monk after monk
upheave himself from the straw and come clambering up the ladder;
tall monks and short, old monks and young and middle-aged, lean monks
and thickset--but the most of them cadaverous, and all of them yellow
with sea-sickness; twenty-eight monks, all barefoot, all tolerably
dirty, and all blinking in the fresh sunshine. When they were
gathered, at a sign from one of them--by dress not distinguishable
from his fellows--all knelt and gave silent thanks for the voyage
accomplished.
I could see that Billy Priske was frightened: for, arising, they
rolled their eyes about them like wild animals turned loose in an
unfamiliar country, and the whites of their eyes were yellow (so to
speak) with seafaring, and their pupils glassy with fever and from
the sea's glare.
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