Something at this point diverted the conversation, and the subject was dropped.
When I left the table I went on deck; the west was still full of warm splendour, the sea ran heaving in deep blue folds to an horizon crystalline in the delicate sweep of it against the east, on whose violet slope--that looked to thrill with the depth of its own hue as the blue of the calm trembles under the eye--a large star was flashing.
I lighted a cigar, sunk in thought over the talk about the ice. If the body should not prove Marie's, then, supposing the hull had got locked, how long would she be able to support life in the bleak dark cabin? I had often asked that of myself and of others. I asked it again now, and whilst my mind ran upon the dinner talk Captain Robson, the old retired Newcastle shipmaster, stepped up to me.
They did not allow you to smoke on the poop; I stood in what would be called the gangway, and Captain Robson came along with a great meerschaum pipe in his hand, stuffing the bowl with a queer kind of granulated tobacco which he pulled out of a little sack.
'This is Zooloo mundungus,' said he with a hoarse, shouting laugh; 'I am learning to like it. They say it is arle a man can get on the coast yon,' and he hove up three stout chins in a measured nod in the direction of the sea over the bows.
'Are you going to take charge of a ship?' said I.
'Ay, was I? Since I was twelve. D'ee ken,' said he, broadening his accent for my entertainment, 'that I'm the original laddie of this yarn: A boy was holding a candle in the North Sea for the skipper whilst he overhauled his chart. "Eh, sir," says the boy, "if they did but ken war we was at home!" "If we kenned oursells," says the skipper, "I'd ne'er heed a dam!"'
'You seem to know a good deal about the ice,' said I.
'I knew too much about most things,' he answered, puffing. 'If you was to turn to and pump out my mind, more'd come up than what the poets call sparkling brine.'
He looked to right and left to observe if he was overheard, and I guessed he was a wag who liked the laughter of many.
Just then four Italian emigrants began to sing together on the forecastle; their voices swelled in a pleasing concert; the rude harmonies of the engine-room, dim and deep, as interpretable as human voices, so articulate was the metallic clangour, mingled with the music the singers made without vexing the ear.