Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin | Page 7

cannot pay in better coin than that you have treated me with; and so good day, Count Fuddlepate and Baron Stickum, or whatever you call yourselves," answered the sailor; who, sticking his pipe in his mouth, which he had taken out to make this long speech, and putting his hands in his pocket, rolled back to where he had left his companions, to whom he failed not to recount the liberal treatment he had received in the way of compliment from the two exalted individuals he had introduced to Captain Jan Dunck.
CHAPTER TWO.
"Well, Mynheers, the sooner we get on board the galiot the better," said Captain Jan Dunck, addressing the Count and Baron. "She's a fine craft--a finer never floated on the Zuyder Zee; she carries a wonderful amount of cargo; her accommodation for passengers is excellent; her cabin is quite a palace, a fit habitation for a king. She's well found with a magnificent crew of sturdy fellows, and as to her captain, I flatter myself--though it is I who say it--that you will not find his equal afloat; yes, Mynheers, I say so without vanity. I've sailed, man and boy, for forty years or more on the stormy ocean, and never yet found my equal. I will convey you and your luggage and all other belongings to Amsterdam with speed and safety, always providing the winds are favourable, and we do not happen to stick on a mud-bank to be left high and dry till the next spring-tide, or that a storm does not arise and send us to the bottom, the fate which has overtaken many a stout craft, but which by my skill and knowledge I hope to avoid. However, I now invite you to come on board the Golden Hog, that we may be ready to weigh anchor directly the tide turns, and proceed on our voyage. There lies the craft on board which you are to have the happiness of sailing;" and Captain Jan Dunck, as he spoke, pointed to a galiot of no over large proportions which lay a short distance from the wharf, with her sails loosed ready for sea.
"Well, we are fortunate in finding so experienced a navigator," observed the Count to the Baron, as they followed Captain Jan Dunck towards the steps at the bottom of which lay his boat. "He'll carry us as safely round the world as would have done the brave Captains Schouten and Le Maire, or Christofero Columbo himself."
"If we take him at his own estimation he is undoubtedly a first-rate navigator; but you must remember, my dear Count, that it is not always safe to judge of men by the report they give of themselves; we shall know more about them at the termination of our voyage than we do at present," observed the Baron. "However, there is the boat, and he is making signs to us to follow him."
The Count and Baron accordingly descended the steps into the galiot's boat, in the stern of which sat the Captain, his weight lifting the bows up considerably out of the water. A sailor in a woollen shirt who had lost one eye, and squinted with the other, and a nose, the ruddy tip of which seemed anxious to be well acquainted with his chin, sat in the bows with a pair of sculls in his hand ready to shove off at his captain's command.
"Give way," said the skipper, and the one-eyed seaman began to paddle slowly and deliberately, for the boat was heavily weighted with the skipper and the Count and Baron in the stern, and as there was no necessity for haste, greater speed would have been superfluous.
"Is this the way boats always move over the water?" asked the Count, as he observed the curious manner in which the bow cocked up.
"Not unless they have great men in the stern, as my boat has at present," answered the skipper.
"Ah, yes, I understand," said the Count, looking very wise.
The boat was soon alongside the galiot, on board which the skipper stepped. As soon as he was out of her the bow of the boat came down with a flop in the water. He then stood ready to receive the Count and Baron. As he helped them up on deck, he congratulated them on having thus successfully performed the first part of their voyage. "And now, Mynheers," he continued, "I must beg you to admire the masts and rigging, the yellow tint of the sails, the bright polish you can see around you."
"You must have expended a large amount of paint and varnish in thus adorning your vessel," observed the Count.
"I have done my best to make her worthy of her Captain," answered the skipper, in a complacent tone, "and worthy, I may add, of conveying such