ulls
jumped out of the boat and began to swim about on it, primin' their
feathers and lookin' at themselves in the transparent depths, though I
must say that one of them made an awful face as he dipped his bill into
the water and tasted kerosene.

"Now I had time to sit quiet in the midst of the placid space I had
made for myself, and rest from workin' of the rudder. Truly it was a
wonderful and marvellous thing to look at. The waves was roarin' and
leapin' up all around me higher than the roof of this house, and
sometimes their tops would reach over so that they nearly met and shut
out all view of the stormy sky, which seemed as if it was bein' torn to
pieces by blazin' lightnin', while the thunder pealed so tremendous
that it almost drowned the roar of the waves. Not only above and all
around me was every thing terrific and fearful, but even under me it
was the same, for there was a big crack in the bottom of the boat as
wide as my hand, and through this I could see down into the water
beneath, and there was--"

"Madam!" ejaculated Captain Bird, the hand which had been holding his
pipe a few inches from his mouth now dropping to his knee; and at this
motion the hands which held the pipes of the three other mariners
dropped to their knees.

"Of course it sounds strange," continued the widow, "but I know that
people can see down into clear water, and the water under me was clear,
and the crack was wide enough for me to see through, and down under me
was sharks and swordfishes and other horrible water creatures, which I
had never seen before, all driven into the bay, I haven't a doubt, by
the violence of the storm out at sea. The thought of my bein' upset
and fallin' in among those monsters made my very blood run cold, and
involuntary-like I began to turn the handle of the rudder, and in a
moment I shot into a wall of ragin' sea-water that was towerin' around
me. For a second I was fairly blinded and stunned, but I had the cork
out of that oil-can in no time, and very soon--you'd scarcely believe
it if I told you how soon--I had another placid mill-pond surroundin'
of me. I sat there a-pantin' and fannin' with my straw hat, for you'd
better believe I was flustered, and then I began to think how long it
would take me to make a line of mill-ponds clean across the head of the
bay, and how much oil it would need, and whether I had enough. So I
sat and calculated that if a tumblerful of oil would make a smooth
plac