Guido went off topic. My turn ~ Joshua Slocum

Plums seemed
the most plentiful on the Spray, and these I ate without stint. I had also a Pico white cheese that General
Manning, the American consul-general, had given me, which I supposed was to be eaten, and of this I
partook with the plums. Alas! by night-time I was doubled up with cramps. The wind, which was already a
smart breeze, was increasing somewhat, with a heavy sky to the sou'west. Reefs had been turned out, and I
must turn them in again somehow. Between cramps I got the mainsail down, hauledout the earings as best
I could, and tied away point by point, in the double reef. There being sea-room, I should, in strict prudence,
have made all snug and gone down at once to my cabin. I am a careful man at sea, but this night, in the
coming storm, I swayed up my sails, which, reefed though they were, were still too much in such heavy
weather; and I saw to it that the sheets were securely belayed. In a word, I should have laid to, but did not. I
gave her the double-reefed mainsail and whole jib instead, and set her on her course. Then I went below,
and threw myself upon the cabin floor in great pain. How long I lay there I could not tell, for I became
delirious. When I came to, as I thought, from my swoon, I realized that the sloop was plunging into a heavy
sea, and looking out of the companionway, to my amazement I saw a tall man at the helm. His rigid hand,
grasping the spokes of the wheel, held them as in a vice. One may imagine my astonishment. His rig was
that of a foreign sailor, and the large red cap he wore was cockbilled over his left ear, and all was set off
with shaggy black whiskers. He would have been taken for a pirate in any part of the world. While I gazed
upon his threatening aspect I forgot the storm, and wondered if he had come to cut my throat. This he
seemed to divine. "Señor," said he, doffing his cap, "I have come to do you no harm." And a smile, the
faintest in the world, but still a smile, played on his face, which seemed not unkind when he spoke. "I have
come to do you no harm. I have sailed free," he said, "but was never worse than a contrabandista. I am one
of Columbus's crew," he continued. "I am the pilot of the Pinta come to aid you. Lie quiet, señor captain,"
he added, "and I will guide your ship to-night. You have a calentura, but you will be all right to-morrow." I
thought what a very devil he was to carry sail. Again, as if he read my mind, he exclaimed: "Yonder is the
Pintaahead; we must overtake her. Give her sail; give her sail! Vale, vale, muy vale!" Biting off a large
quid of black twist, he said: "You did wrong, captain, to mix cheese with plums. White cheese is never safe
unless you know whence it comes. Quien sabe, it may have been from leche de Capraand becoming
capricious –"
"Avast, there!" I cried. "I have no mind for moralizing."
I made shift to spread a mattress and lie on that instead of the hard floor, my eyes all the while fastened on
my strange guest, who, remarking again that I would have "only pains and calentura," chuckled as he
chanted a wild song:
High are the waves, fierce, gleaming,
High is the tempest roar!
High the sea-bird screaming!
High the Azore!