Cat with green eyes and lotus scrollwork on side

The cat came aboard at Gravesend, though nobody will say who brought her, and the men have decided she is the ship's now, as they decide everything, by vote and by grumbling. She is grey as wet slate all over except her eyes, which are green as the bottle glass the cook keeps his gin in. Mr Pryce swears they're lit from behind. On the third night of the fog I saw them moving along the rail before I saw anything else of her at all.

I have been making a box for the captain's cabin out of the camphor-wood we took on at Penang, and I have carved lotus flowers into the lid, one at each corner, with curls of scroll between them so the grain runs like water. The cat has taken a liking to the work. Every evening she sits on the bench and watches the chisel with her head turned sideways, as if she is checking my curls against some better pattern of her own. Twice she has put a paw on the shavings. Once she left a dead moth on the lid, very neatly, and I have decided to take that as a compliment.

Yesterday the mate came to say the captain wants the box finished before we raise the Cape. I told him the lid needs a second coat of oil and the scrolls need another week. He laughed and said nothing on this ship ever goes as planned. The cat looked up at him, unblinking, and I swear he stopped laughing.

I'll post this when we touch at Cape Town, if the post goes ashore before the sea takes us. Give Father my regards and tell him the box will be the best thing I have ever made, provided the cat lets me finish it.

Your loving brother, Tom