Perhaps a
brother seaman would though.
The next observation that trickled out of Fullalove's tube was
this: "I judge there are too few hands on deck, and too
many--white--eyeballs--glittering at the portholes."
"Confound it!" muttered Bayliss, uneasily; "how can you see that?"
Fullalove replied only by quietly handing his glass to Dodd. The
captain, thus appealed to, glued his eye to the tube.
"Well, sir; see the false ports, and the white eyebrows?" asked Sharpe,
ironically.
"I see this is the best glass I ever looked through," said Dodd doggedly,
without interrupting his inspection.
"I think he is a Malay pirate," said Mr. Grey.
Sharpe took him up very quickly, and, indeed, angrily: "Nonsense! And if
he is, he won't venture on a craft of this size."
"Says the whale to the swordfish," suggested Fullalove, with a little
guttural laugh.
The captain, with the American glass at his eye, turned half round to the
man at the wheel: "Starboard!"
"Starboard it is."
"Steer South South East."
"Ay, ay, sir." And the ship's course was thus altered two points.
This order lowered Dodd fifty per cent in Mr. Sharpe's estimation.
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