All were speaking
together, swearing at every second word. A Russian Finn, wearing a
yellow shirt with pink stripes, stared upwards, dreamy-eyed, from under
a mop of tumbled hair. Two young giants with smooth, baby faces--two
Scandinavians--helped each other to spread their bedding, silent, and
smiling placidly at the tempest of good-humoured and meaningless curses.
Old Singleton, the oldest able seaman in the ship, set apart on the deck
right under the lamps, stripped to the waist, tattooed like a cannibal
chief all over his powerful chest and enormous biceps. Between the blue
and red patterns his white skin gleamed like satin; his bare back was
propped against the heel of the bowsprit, and he held a book at
arm's length before his big, sunburnt face. With his spectacles and a
venerable white beard, he resembled a learned and savage patriarch, the
incarnation of barbarian wisdom serene in the blasphemous turmoil of
the world. He was intensely absorbed, and as he turned the pages an
expression of grave surprise would pass over his rugged features. He was
reading "Pelham." The popularity of Bulwer Lytton in the forecastles of
Southern-going ships is a wonderful and bizarre phenomenon.
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