“Here’s the north,” he would say. “There’s the south. The wind’s coming from hereabouts. Now the brig is sailing due west; we’ve just lowered the top-boom mizzen; and so you see⁠—here, where this bit of grass is, she enters the current which you’ll find marked⁠—where’s my map and compasses, Bo’sun?⁠—Ah! thanks, that’ll do, where the snail shell is. The current catches her on the starboard side, so we must rig the jib-boom or we shall be carried to the larboard, which is where that beech leaf is⁠—for you must understand my dear⁠—” and so he would go on, and she would listen to every word; interpreting them rightly, so as to see, that is to say, without his having to tell her, the phosphorescence on the waves; the icicles clanking in the shrouds; how he went to the top of the mast in a gale; there reflected on the destiny of man; came down again; had a whisky and soda; went on shore; was trapped by a black woman; repented; reasoned it out; read Pascal; determined to write philosophy; bought a monkey; debated the true end of life; decided in favour of Cape Horn, and so on. All this and a thousand other things she understood him to say, and so when she replied, Yes, negresses are seductive, aren’t they? he having told her that the supply of biscuits now gave out, he was surprised and delighted to find how well she had taken his meaning.