laimed the captain with a look of supreme contempt.

The turn of thought silenced both speakers for a time; and when Captain
Arkal turned to resume the conversation, he found that his friend was
sound asleep.

CHAPTER THREE.

ON THE VOYAGE.

Weather has always been, and, we suppose, always will be, capricious.
Its uncertainty of character--in the Levant, as in the Atlantic, in days
of old as now, was always the same--smiling to-day; frowning to-morrow;
playful as a lamb one day; raging like a lion the next.

After the rough handling experienced by the _Penelope_ at the beginning
of her voyage, rude Boreas kindly retired, and spicy breezes from Africa
rippled the sea with just sufficient force to intensify its heavenly
blue, and fill out the great square-sail so that there was no occasion
to ply the oars. One dark, starlight but moonless night, a time of
quiet talk prevailed from stem to stern of the vessel as the grizzled
mariners spun long yarns of their prowess and experiences on the deep,
for the benefit of awe-stricken and youthful shipmates whose careers
were only commencing.

"You've heard, no doubt, of the great sea-serpent?" observed little
Maikar, who had speedily recovered from the flattening to which Bladud
had subjected him, and was busy enlivening a knot of young fellows in
the bow of the ship.

"Of course we have!" cried one; "father used to tell me about it when I
was but a small boy. He never saw it himself, though he had been to the
Tin Isles and Albion more than once; but he said he had met with men who
had spoken with shipmates who had heard of it from men who had seen it
only a few days before, and who described it exactly."

"Ah!" remarked another, "but I have met a man who had seen it himself on
his first voyage, when he was quite a youth; and he said it had a bull's
head and horns, with a dreadful long body all over scales, and something
like an ass's tail at the end."

"Pooh!--nonsense!" exclaimed little Maikar, twirling his thumbs, for
smoking had not been introduced into the world at that period--and
thumb-twirling would seem to have served the ancient world for leisurely
pastime quite as well, if not better--at least we are led to infer so
from the fact that Herodotus makes no mention of anything like a vague,
mysterious sensation of unsatisfied desire to fill the mouth with smoke
in those early ages, which he would certainly have done had the taste
for smoke been a natural cravin