ild beast
aboard a ship!'

'Do, then.'

'It was told me by an ancient mariner, who knows how many years ago? for
I'm getting to be an old fellow myself, children.'

'What nonsense, Dick! talk about _your_ being old.'

'Well, never mind. I'll try to give it to you in his own words. Said he:

"I never see a nigger turn white but once, and that was aboard of the
old 'Emperor.' We was bound from Calcutta, to Boston, and had aboard an
elephant, a big Bengal tiger, and a lot of other wild creturs, for a
menagerie. Well, one forenoon, blowing a good topsail breeze, as it
might be to-day, but more sea than wind, we was going large, and I up on
the main-yard, turning in a splice. All to once, I heerd a strange
noise, and looked down. There was the black cook, shinning of it up,
making a great hullibaloo, and shaking the tormentors behind him--that's
a big iron fork he has in the galley. His face was as white as a
table-cloth. Close behind him was the tiger, who had got out of his cage
somehow, and, snuffing the grub, had made tracks for the coppers.

"All the watch, by this time, was tumbling up the rigging, fore and aft.
The tiger he tried two or three of the ratlins, but thought it onsafe,
so he let himself down, mighty careful, to the deck. The companion-way
was open, and he dived into the cabin. The captain lay asleep on the
transom, and never waked up. The cretur didn't touch him, but come up
agin, and poked his nose into, the door of the mate's room, that was a
little on the jar. The mate see him, and gin him a kick in the face, and
slammed the door agin him. That made him mad, and he tried to get in at
the little window; but his head was so big, he couldn't begin. Did you
ever mind what eyes them devils has? They've got a kind of cruel,
murderin' look that no other beast has, that I ever see. Well, he give
it up, and went aft. Then, a kind of a sick feelin' come over me; for,
d'ye see, there was _one_ man that couldn't leave no way!'

"The man at the wheel?'

"Ay, shipmet! He saw the tiger comin', for he turned as pale as death;
but he didn't look at him, and never stirred tack or sheet. He stuck
right on to the spokes, and steered her as true as a die; and well he
did, for if he hadn't, we'd a broached to in five seconds, and that
would a been wuss than the tiger. Well, the cussed beast went close up
to him, and actually snuffed at him. You may judge what a relief it was
to us when he left him, at last, and come