floating around on the top, all he
had to do was to let go of the ship and grab us, one at a time. When I
thought of a fist as big as a yawl-boat, clapping its fifty-two fingers
on me, it sent a shiver through my bones. The fact was there wasn't
anything to do, and so after a while I managed to get asleep, which was
a great comfort."

"Mr. Cardly," said Mr. Harberry to the schoolmaster, "what reason can
you assign why a seamonster, such as has been described to us, should
neglect to seize upon several small boats filled with men who were
escaping from a vessel which it held in custody?"

"I do not precisely see," answered Mr. Cardly, "why these men should
have been allowed this immunity, but I--"

"Oh, that is easily explained," interrupted the marine, "for of course
the Water-devil could not know that a lot more people were not left in
the ship, and if he let go his hold on her, to try and grab a boat that
was moving as fast as men could row it, the steamer might get out of
his reach, and he mightn't have another chance for a hundred years to
make fast to a vessel. No, sir, a creature like that isn't apt to take
any wild chances, when he's got hold of a really good thing. Anyway, we
were held tight and fast, for at twelve o'clock the next day I took
another observation, and there we were, in the same latitude and
longitude that we had been in for two days. I took the captain's glass,
and I looked all over the water of that bay, which, as I think I have
said before, was all the same as the ocean, being somewhere about a
thousand miles wide. Not a sail, not a puff of smoke could I see. It
must have been a slack season for navigation, or else we were out of
the common track of vessels; I had never known that the Bay of Bengal
was so desperately lonely.

"It seems unnatural, and I can hardly believe it, when I look back on
it, but it's a fact, that I was beginning to get used to the situation.
We had plenty to eat, the weather was fine--in fact, there was now only
breeze enough to make things cool and comfortable. I was head-man on
that vessel, and Miss Minturn might come on deck at any moment, and as
long as I could forget that there was a Water-devil fastened to the
bottom of the vessel, there was no reason why I should not be perfectly
satisfied with things as they were. And if things had stayed as they
were, for two or three months, I should have been right well pleased,
especially since Miss Minturn's maid, b