And so they all begin another kind of life.
John gives up his cabin for a protesting Pocahontas, and he and Thomas sleep with the other sailors. Meg stays happily enough in her small cabin, decorated with leaves from the Virginian shore and the scarlet stained map. She likes having Thomas on board the ship. She teaches him how to climb the rigging, deal with the sails in the wind, how to navigate only with the sparkling mantle of the sky. She tells him that the Inuits believe the stars are holes, through which the light of the infinite shines through. Sometimes he sees her laughing in the sun, with her salt wrecked cheeks, and he wants very much to kiss her.
He doesn't like the way that oily sailor looks at her. As though he wants to eat her up. Some of the men look at her with less than honorable eyes, as she climbs to sit in the webbing of ropes above them. They think it's odd that the Captain lets his daughter on board. Dressed like a boy as she is, they think she's asking for it – their hungry gaze, moistened lips, sniggered comments in the dark.
Meg does not notice.
Thomas would very much like to beat them blue.