‘By your leave, sir,’ cried the captain of the afterguard, bending over Dr Maturin and shouting into the bag that covered his head. ‘If you please, now.’ ‘What is it?’ asked Stephen at last, with a bestial snarl. ‘Nigh on four bells, sir.’ ‘Well, what of it? Sunday morning, surely to God, and you would be at your holystoning?’ The bag, worn against the moon-pall, stifled his words but not the whining tone of a man jerked from total relaxation and an erotic dream.
