Chapter X

In which is explained the sublime mystery of keel-hauling--Snarleyyow
saves Smallbones from being drowned, although Smallbones would have
drowned him.


It is a dark morning; the wind is fresh from the northwest; flakes of
snow are seen wafting here and there by the wind, the avant-couriers of
a heavy fall; the whole sky is of one murky grey, and the sun is hidden
behind a dense bank. The deck of the cutter is wet and slippery, and
Dick Short has the morning watch. He is wrapt up in a Flushing
pea-jacket, with thick mittens on his hands; he looks about him, and now
and then a fragment of snow whirls into his eye; he winks it out, it
melts and runs like a tear down his cheek. If it were not that it is
contrary to man-of-war custom he would warm himself with the
_double-shuffle_, but such a step would be unheard of on the
quarter-deck of even the cutter _Yungfrau_.

The tarpaulin over the hatchway is pushed on one side, and the space
between the coamings is filled with the bull head and broad shoulders of
Corporal Van Spitter, who, at last, gains the deck; he looks round him
and apparently is not much pleased with the weather. Before he proceeds
to business, he examines the sleeves and front of his jacket, and having
brushed off with the palm of his hand a variety of blanket-hairs,
adhering to the cloth, he is satisfied, and now turns to the right and
to the left, and forward and aft--in less than a minute he goes right
round the compass. What can Corporal Van Spitter want at so early an