"
They had been in the Straits less than a week when Inkspot dreamed he
was in heaven. His ecstatic visions became so strong and vivid that they
awakened him, when he was not long in discovering the cause which had
produced them. The dimly lighted and quiet forecastle was permeated by a
delightful smell of spirituous liquor. Turning his eyes from right to
left, in his endeavors to understand this unusual odor of luxury,
Inkspot perceived the man Garta standing on the other side of the
forecastle, with a bottle in one hand and a cork in the other, and, as
he looked, Garta raised the bottle to his mouth, threw back his head,
and drank.
Inkspot greatly disliked this man. He had been one of the fellows who had
ill-treated him when the _Arato_ sailed under Cardatas, and he fully
agreed with his fellow-blacks that the scoundrel should have been shot.
But now his feelings began to undergo a change. A man with a bottle of
spirits might prove to be an angel of mercy, a being of beneficence, and
if he would share with a craving fellow-being his rare good fortune, why
should not all feelings of disapprobation be set aside? Inkspot could see
no reason why they should not be, and softly slipping from his hammock,
he approached Garta.
"Give me. Give me, just little," he whispered.
Garta turned with a half-suppressed oath, and seeing who the suppliant
was, he seized the bottle in his left hand, and with his right struck
poor Inkspot a blow in the face.
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