Why? inquired Glynn.
Because I love them so muchof course, I mean the good ones. I dont like the bad onesthough theyre very useful, because theyre nice to kill, and punish, and make examples of, and all that, when the good ones catch them.
So they are, said the youth, smiling. I never thought of that before. But go on with your ramble in the clouds.
Well, began Ailie; but where was I?
Just going to be introduced to a bear.
Oh yes; wellthe bear walked slowly away, and then the fairy called out an elephant, and after that a noceros
A noceros! interrupted Glynn; whats that?
Oh, you know very well. A beast with a thick skin hanging in folds, and a horn on its nose
Ah, a rhinocerosI see. Well, go on, Ailie.
Then the fairy told a camel to appear, and after that a monkey, and then a hippopotamus, and they all came out one after another, and some of them went away, and others began to fight. But the strangest thing of all was, that every one of them was so like the pictures of wild beasts that are hanging in my room at home! The elephant, too, I noticed, had his trunk broken exactly the same way as my toy elephants one was. Wasnt it odd?
It was rather odd, replied Glynn; but where did you go after that?
Oh, then we went on, and on again, until we came to
Its your turn at the wheel, lad, aint it? inquired Mr Millons, coming up at that moment, and putting an abrupt termination to the walk in Fairyland.
It is, sir, answered Glynn, springing quickly to the wheel, and relieving the man who had been engaged in penetrating the oceans depths.
The mate walked forward; the released sailor went below, and Ailie was again left to her solitary meditations;for she was enough of a sailor now, in heart, to know that she ought not to talk too much to the steersman, even though the weather should be calm and there was no call for his undivided attention to the duties of his post.
While Nature was thus, as it were, asleep, and the watch on deck were more than half in the same condition, there was one individual in the ship whose faculties were in active play, whose steam, as he himself would have remarked, was up. This was the worthy cook, Nikel Sling, whose duties called him to his post at the galley-fire at an early hour each day.
We have often thought that a cooks life must be one of constant self-denial and exasperation of spirit. Besides the innumerable anxieties in reference to such important matters as boiling over and over-boiling, being done to a turn, or over-done, or singed or burned, or capsized, he has the diurnal misery of being the first human being in his little circle of life, to turn out of a morning, and must therefore experience the discomfortthe peculiar discomfortof finding things as they were left the night before. Any one who does not know what that discomfort is, has only to rise an hour before the servants of a household, whether at sea or on shore, to find out. Cook, too, has generally, if not always, to light the fire; and that, especially in frosty weather, is not agreeable. Moreover, cook roasts himself to such an extent, and at meal-times, in nine cases out of ten, gets into such physical and mental perturbation, that he cannot possibly appreciate the luxuries he has been occupied all the day in concocting. Add to this, that he spends all the morning in preparing breakfast; all the forenoon in preparing dinner; all the afternoon in preparing tea and supper, and all the evening in clearing up, and perhaps all the night in dreaming of the meals of the following day, and mentally preparing breakfast, and we think that we have clearly proved the truth of the proposition with which we startednamely, that a cooks life must be one of constant self-denial and exasperation of spirit.
But this is by the way, and was merely suggested by the fact that, while all other creatures were enjoying either partial or complete repose, Nikel Sling was washing out pots and pans and kettles, and handling murderous-looking knives and two-pronged tormentors with a demoniacal activity that was quite appalling.
Beside him, on a little stool close to the galley-fire, sat Tim Rokensnot that Mr Rokens was coldfar from it. He was, to judge from appearances, much hotter than was agreeable. But Tim had come there and sat down to light his pipe, and being rather phlegmatic when not actively employed, he preferred to be partially roasted for a few minutes to getting up again.
We ought, remarked Tim Rokens, puffing at a little black pipe which seemed inclined to be obstinate, we ought to be gittin among the fish by this time. Manys the one Ive seed in them ere seas.
I rather guess we should, replied the cook, pausing the midst of his toils and wiping the perspiration from his forehead with an immense bundle of greasy oakum. But Ive seed us keep dodgin about for weeks, I have, later in the year than this, without clappin eyes on a fin. What sort o baccy dye smoke, Rokens?
Dun know. Got it from a Spanish smuggler for an old clasp-knife. Why?
Cause it smells like rotten straw, an wont improve the victuals. Guess youd better take yourself off, old chap.
Wot a cross-grained crittur ye are, said Rokens, as he rose to depart.
At that moment there was heard a cry that sent the blood tingling to the extremities of every one on board the Red Eric.
Thar she blows! thar she blows! shouted the man in the crows-nest.
The crows-nest is a sort of cask, or nest, fixed at the top of the mainmast of whale-ships, in which a man is stationed all day during the time the ships are on the fishing-ground, to look out for whales; and the cry, Thar she blows, announced the fact that the look-out had observed a whale rise to the surface and blow a spout of steamy water into the air.
No conceivable eventunless perhaps the blowing-up of the ship itselfcould have more effectually and instantaneously dissipated the deep tranquillity to which we have more than once referred. Had an electric shock been communicated through the ship to each individual, the crew could not have been made to leap more vigorously and simultaneously. Many days before, they had begun to expect to see whales. Every one was therefore on the qui vive, so that when the well-known signal rang out like a startling peal in the midst of the universal stillness, every heart in the ship leaped in unison.
Had an observant man been seated at the time in the forecastle, he would have noticed that from out of the ten or fifteen hammocks that swung from the beams, there suddenly darted ten or fifteen pairs of legs which rose to the perpendicular position in order to obtain leverage to fetch way. Instantly thereafter the said legs descended, and where the feet had been, ten or fifteen heads appeared. Next moment the men were tumbling up the fore-hatch to the deck, where the watch had already sprung to the boat-tackles.
Where away? sang out Captain Dunning who was among the first on deck.
Off the weather bow, sir, three points.
How far?
About two miles. Thar she blows!
Call all hands, shouted the captain.
Starboard watch, ahoy! roared the mate, in that curious hoarse voice peculiar to boatswains of men-of-war. Tumble up, lads, tumble up! Whale in sight! Bear a hand, my hearties!
The summons was almost unnecessary. The starboard watch waswith the exception of one or two uncommonly heavy sleepersalready on deck pulling on its ducks and buckling its belts.