Morgan’s Affection
While sleeping, Morgan arrives and, believing the narrator dead, asks the sergeant about him. When informed the narrator has slept peacefully for five hours, Morgan assumes he has died and begins mourning, saying he was a promising youth who paid his debt like an honest man. The sergeant, alarmed, enters the berth but finds the narrator smiling and winking. Morgan approaches with tears to view the body, and the narrator counterfeits death so well that Morgan observes the distortion of his face as evidence of a struggle. When Morgan begins closing the narrator’s eyes and mouth, the narrator snaps at his fingers, startling him. Morgan turns pale but the narrator reassures him with hopes of eating salmagundy together in England. Upon feeling the pulse and finding the favorable crisis, Morgan congratulates him, attributing the recovery to the blister he claims to have applied—though the narrator secretly knows the plaster is missing from his back.
The Conduct of Mackshane and Crampley
Upon recovering, the narrator crawls on deck with a staff and encounters Doctor Mackshane, who passes with disdain and offers no acknowledgment. Crampley follows, confronting the narrator with abusive language about lazy skulking men allowed to lollop while betters do hard duty. The narrator restrains his anger, knowing his feebleness and enemies in the ship could ruin him. He reminds Crampley he has not forgotten the insolence and malice, hoping they will meet on shore. Crampley grins and declares he longs for such an opportunity.
Departure of Captain Oakum
The ship is ordered to be heaved down, victualled, and watered for the return to England. Captain Oakum, finding it inconvenient to revisit his native country, exchanges with another gentleman who desperately wishes to be safe beyond the tropics.
Captain Whiffle’s Character
The new commander, Captain Whiffle, takes possession of the ship in a ten-oared barge, appearing in every way the reverse of Oakum. He is a tall, thin young man dressed elaborately: a white hat with a red feather, pink silk coat lined with white, white satin waistcoat embroidered with gold, a garnet brooch on fine cambric shirt edged with Mechlin lace, crimson velvet breeches, silk stockings, blue Morocco shoes with diamond buckles, a steel-hilted sword inlaid with gold, and an amber-headed cane. Remarkably, he wears a mask on his face and white gloves fixed with rings on his little fingers. His ship is impregnated with perfumes, surpassing even Arabia Felix in sweetness, and he is surrounded by attendants of similar disposition.
Morgan’s Adventure
When Morgan notices no surgeon among Whiffle’s attendants, he decides to solicit the new captain’s interest for the vacancy before another surgeon can be appointed. He approaches the cabin in his ordinary, tobacco-scented clothing. Finding Whiffle reposing in fine chintz and muslin, Morgan begins his petition, claiming to be a gentleman born and bred with misfortunes. Whiffle, shocked by the apparition and the tobacco smell, cries out that he is suffocated and orders Morgan away, calling him a monster and a stinkard. Whiffle’s servants revive their swooning captain while pushing Morgan out. Morgan returns to where the narrator waits and, according to his custom when enduring indignity he cannot avenge, begins singing a Welsh ditty. When asked about the cause of his agitation, Morgan protests that he is neither monster nor stinkard, affirming his Christian smells except for tobacco, which he declares is a cephalic, aromatic herb. He vows to proclaim before the world that Captain Whiffle is disguised and transfigured with affectation, and more like a monkey than a human being.
CHAPITRE XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXV
This chapter chronicles the narrator’s transition from his current ship to the Lizard sloop-of-war following Captain Whiffle’s peculiar behavior, his voluntary detention in the West Indies, and subsequent assignment to prize duty at Port Morant where he tends wounded prisoners.
Captain Whiffle Summons the Narrator; Crew Disapproves of His Favoritism of Mr. Simper
Captain Whiffle Summons the Narrator; Crew Disapproves of His Favoritism of Mr. Simper
Captain Whiffle sends for the narrator, who finds the captain languishing on a couch with his valet-de-chambre supporting him. Whiffle examines the narrator from a distance with a spy-glass and approaches cautiously to satisfy his sense of smell before declaring him “tolerable.” When the narrator attempts to take the captain’s pulse, Whiffle cries out in distress at the rough handling. The captain expresses reluctance to submit to treatment without his own surgeon, Mr. Simper, revealing the crew’s unfavorable opinion of their commander’s favoritism toward his personal physician.
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