Toast, who, quite as a matter of course, suffered in
proportion as his superior was made to feel, in his own person, the weight
of Captain Truck's authority. It is perhaps fortunate that nature points
out this easy and self-evident mode of relief, else would the rude habits
of a ship sometimes render the relations between him who orders and him
whose duty it is to obey, too nearly approaching to the intolerable.
The captain's squalls, however, were of short duration and on the present
occasion he was soon in even a better humour than common, as every minute
gave the cheering assurance, that the tempest was fast drawing to a close.
He had finished his third cigar, and was actually issuing his orders to
turn the reef out of the foresail, and to set the main-top-sail
close-reefed, when most of the passengers appeared on deck, for the first
time that morning.
"Here we are, gentlemen!" cried Captain Truck, in the way of salutation,
"nearer to Guinea than I could wish, with every prospect, now, of soon
working our way across the Atlantic, and possibly of making a thirty or
thirty-five days' passage of it yet. We have this sea to quiet; and then I
hope to show you what the Montauk has in her, besides her passengers and
cargo. I think we have now got rid of the Foam, as well as of the gale.
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