sociales como el marino de los bosques lejanos, recién llegado de las latitudes de los cuchillos Bowie con mango de asta de ciervo. Sin embargo, este nantuqueño era un hombre con algunos rasgos de buen corazón; y este hombre de los lagos, un marinero que, aunque ciertamente una especie de demonio, no obstante —mediante una firmeza inquebrantable, atemperada únicamente por esa decencia común de reconocimiento humano que es el derecho del más humilde esclavo; tratado así—, este Steelkilt se había mantenido durante mucho tiempo inofensivo y dócil. En todo caso, así había resultado ser hasta entonces; pero Radney estaba condenado y enloquecido, y Steelkilt... pero, caballeros, ya lo oiréis.
“It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after pointing her prow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho ’s leak seemed again increasing, but only so as to require an hour or more at the pumps every day.
You must know that in a settled and civilized ocean like our Atlantic, for example, some skippers think little of pumping their whole way across it; though of a still, sleepy night, should the officer of the deck happen to forget his duty in that respect, the probability would be that he and his shipmates would never again remember it, on account of all hands gently subsiding to the bottom.
Nor in the solitary and savage seas far from you to the westward, gentlemen, is it altogether unusual for ships to keep clanging at their pump-handles in full chorus even for a voyage of considerable length; that is, if it lie along a tolerably accessible coast, or if any other reasonable retreat is afforded them.
It is only when a leaky vessel is in some very out of the way part of those waters, some really landless latitude, that her captain begins to feel a little anxious.