.
"Such as anything in particular?" asked the widow, at which remark
Dorcas clasped her hands in expectancy.
At this question each of the mariners took his pipe from his mouth and
gazed upon the floor in thought.
"There's a good many strange things happened to me and my mates at sea.
Would you and that other lady like to hear any of them?" asked Captain
Bird.
"We would like to hear them if they are true," said the widow.
"There's nothing happened to me and my mates that isn't true," said
Captain Bird, "and here is something that once happened to me: I was
on a whaling v'yage when a big sperm-whale, just as mad as a fiery
bull, came at us, head on, and struck the ship at the stern with such
tremendous force that his head crashed right through her timbers and he
went nearly half his length into her hull. The hold was mostly filled
with empty barrels, for we was just beginning our v'yage, and when he
had made kindling-wood of these there was room enough for him. We all
expected that it wouldn't take five minutes for the vessel to fill and
go to the bottom, and we made ready to take to the boats; but it turned
out we didn't need to take to no boats, for as fast as the water rushed
into the hold of the ship, that whale drank it and squirted it up
through the two blow-holes in the top of his head, and as there was an
open hatchway just over his head, the water all went into the sea
again, and that whale kept working day and night pumping the water out
until we beached the vessel on the island of Trinidad--the whale
helping us wonderful on our way over by the powerful working of his
tail, which, being outside in the water, acted like a propeller. I
don't believe any thing stranger than that ever happened to a whaling
ship."
"No," said the widow, "I don't believe anything ever did."
Captain Bird now looked at Captain Sanderson, and the latter took his
pipe out of his mouth and said that in all his sailing around the world
he had never known anything queerer than what happened to a big
steamship he chanced to be on, which ran into an island in a fog.
Everybody on board thought the ship was wrecked, but it had twin
screws, and was going at such a tremendous speed that it turned the
island entirely upside down and sailed over it, and he had heard tell
that even now people sailing over the spot could look down into the
water and see the roots of the trees and the cellars of the houses.
Captain Sanderson now pu
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