s, and liked to exhibit
their skilful management of them. They talked to us in their chirpy
jargon (Toongus, I think it was called); but jargon it must needs remain
to us.

"Well, we made a patch of the hulk, and we shipped in her again. We were
fortunate to be able to do that, for, with every stiffish wind blowing
inshore, we had feared she would drag her moorings and ground immovably
on the swamps. The land, indeed, was so flat and low that, whenever the
sea rose at all, it threshed the very plains and crackled in the moss;
and we were glad, despite the risk, to leave so lifeless a place."

Dinah paused to light another cigarette, and to inhale the ecstasy of the
first puff or so before she continued. Up through the still evening, from
a curve of the main road that crooked an elbow to her front garden, came
what sounded like the purring of a great cat--the wind in the telegraph
wires.

"And I am now to tell you," she said, "about the mastodon?"

"As you please," I answered.

"I do please; for why should I keep it to myself? It makes no difference;
only I warn you, if you quote me, you will be writ down a fool or a
maniac. This relation lacks witnesses, for the whaler--that I
subsequently quitted for another homing vessel--was never heard of in
port any more."

She looked at me with some serious scrutiny before she went on.

"For these regions, it had been an extraordinarily hot
summer--phenomenally hot, I understand; and to this--to the melting and
breaking away of the ice from hitherto century-locked fastnesses, the
captain attributed the wonderful experience that befell us. The sea was
strewn with blocks and bergs, all hurrying onwards in the strong
currents, as if in haste to escape the pursuing demon of frost that
should re-fetter them; and their multitude kept the steersman's arms
spinning till the man would fall half-fainting over the spoke-handles.

"Now, one morning early in September, a dense bright fog dropped suddenly
upon the waters. We were making what sail we could--with our crippled
spars and stunted trees of masts--and this it were useless to shorten,
and so invite a rearward bombardment from the chasing hummocks. So we
kept our course by the compass, and trailed on through a blind mist while
fear drummed in our throats. The demoralization of my friend was by this
time complete. For myself, I seldom had a thought but that Nature would
sheathe her claws when she played with me.

"'This cannot