ectly transparent was the surface of
the deep, that had it not been for the long swell already alluded to, we
might have believed the surrounding universe to be a huge blue liquid
ball, and our little ship the one solitary material speck in all
creation, floating in the midst of it.

No sound broke on our ears save the soft puff now and then of a porpoise,
the slow creak of the masts, as we swayed gently on the swell, the patter
of the reef-points, and the occasional flap of the hanging sails. An
awning covered the fore and after parts of the schooner, under which the
men composing the watch on deck lolled in sleepy indolence, overcome with
excessive heat. Bloody Bill, as the men invariably called him, was
standing at the tiller, but his post for the present was a sinecure, and
he whiled away the time by alternately gazing in dreamy abstraction at
the compass in the binnacle, and by walking to the taffrail in order to
spit into the sea. In one of these turns he came near to where I was
standing, and, leaning over the side, looked long and earnestly down into
the blue wave.

This man, although he was always taciturn and often surly, was the only
human being on board with whom I had the slightest desire to become
better acquainted. The other men, seeing that I did not relish their
company, and knowing that I was a protege of the captain, treated me with
total indifference. Bloody Bill, it is true, did the same; but as this
was his conduct towards every one else, it was not peculiar in reference
to me. Once or twice I tried to draw him into conversation, but he
always turned away after a few cold monosyllables. As he now leaned over
the taffrail close beside me, I said to him,--

"Bill, why is it that you are so gloomy? Why do you never speak to any
one?"

Bill smiled slightly as he replied, "Why, I s'pose it's because I haint
got nothin' to say!"

"That's strange," said I, musingly; "you look like a man that could
think, and such men can usually speak."

"So they can, youngster," rejoined Bill, somewhat sternly; "and I could
speak too if I had a mind to, but what's the use o' speakin' here! The
men only open their mouths to curse and swear, an' they seem to find it
entertaining; but I don't, so I hold my tongue."

"Well, Bill, that's true, and I would rather not hear you speak at all
than hear you speak like the other men; but _I_ don't swear, Bill, so you
might talk to me sometimes, I think. Besides, I'