Almost at once I went below in search of my hammock, and there slept
ten solid hours by the clock; a feat of which I never witted until,
coming upon deck, I rubbed my eyes to find no sight of land, but the
sea all around us, and Captain Pomery at the helm, with the sun but a
little above his right shoulder. The sky, but for a few fleeced
clouds, was clear; a brisk north-westerly breeze blew steady on our
starboard quarter, and before it the ketch ran with a fine hiss of
water about her bluff bows. My father and Nat were stretched with a
board between them on the deck by the foot of the mizzen, deep in a
game of chequers: and without disturbing them I stepped amidships
where Mr. Fett lay prone on his belly, his chin propped on both
hands, in discourse with Billy and Mr. Badcock, who reclined with
their backs against the starboard bulwark.
"Tut, man!" said Mr. Fett, cheerfully, addressing Billy. "You have
taken the right classical way with her: think of Theseus and Ariadne,
Phaon and Sappho. . . . We are back in the world's first best age;
when a man, if he wanted a woman to wife, sailed in a ship and
abducted her, as did the Tyrian sea-captain with Io daughter of
Inachus, Jason with Medea, Paris with Helen of Greece; and again,
when he tired of her, left her on an island and sailed away.
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