dry costume, after
which he felt almost as well as if nothing unusual had happened to him.
The men meanwhile cut their jokes at him or at each other as they stood
round and watched, assisted, or retarded the process. As for Tim
Rokens, who had been in the boat and witnessed the rescue, he stood
gazing steadfastly at Glynn without uttering a word, keeping his thumbs
the while hooked in the arm-holes of his vest, and his legs very much
apart. By degrees--as he thought on what had passed, and the narrow
escape poor little Ailie had had, and the captain's tears, things he had
never seen the captain shed before and had not believed the captain to
have possessed--as he pondered these things, we say, his knotty visage
began to work, and his cast-iron chin began to quiver, and his shaggy
brows contracted, and his nose, besides becoming purple, began to twist,
as if it were an independent member of his face, and he came, in short,
to that climax which is familiarly expressed by the words "bursting into
tears."

But if anybody thinks the act, on the part of Tim Rokens, bore the
smallest resemblance to the generally received idea of that sorrowful
affection, "anybody," we take leave to tell him, is very much mistaken.
The bold harpooner did it thus--he suddenly unhooked his right hand from
the arm-hole of his vest, and gave his right thigh a slap which produced
a crack that would have made a small pistol envious; then he uttered a
succession of ferocious roars, that might have quite well indicated
pain, or grief, or madness, or a drunken cheer, and, un-hooking the left
hand, he doubled himself up, and thrust both knuckles into his eyes.
The knuckles were wet when he pulled them out of his eyes, but he dried
them on his pantaloons, bolted up the hatchway, and rushing up to the
man at the wheel, demanded in a voice of thunder--"How's 'er head?"

"Sou'-sou'-east-and-by-east," replied the man, in some surprise.

"Sou'-sou'-east-and-by-east!" repeated Mr Rokens, in a savage growl of
authority, as if he were nothing less than the admiral of the Channel
Fleet. "That's two points and a half off yer course, sir. Luff, luff,
you--you--"

At this point Tim Rokens turned on his heel, and began to walk up and
down the deck as calmly as if nothing whatever had occurred to disturb
his equanimity.

"The captain wants Glynn Proctor," said the second mate, looking down
the fore-hatch.

"Ay, ay, sir," answered Glynn, ascending, and going