collection of some of the
horrors which that quiet surface hid. Yet I was not long in this place;
for they in the ship, perceiving how the rope let me nearer to the weed
than was safe, pulled very heartily upon the hauling-line, and so I came
quickly to the hulk.

Now, as I drew nigh to the ship, the men crowded upon a little platform
which they had built in the superstructure somewhat below the broken head
of the mizzen, and here they received me with loud cheers and very open
arms, and were so eager to get me out of the bo'sun's chair, that they
cut the lashings, being too impatient to cast them loose. Then they led
me down to the deck, and here, before I had knowledge of aught else, a
very buxom woman took me into her arms, kissing me right heartily, at
which I was greatly taken aback; but the men about me did naught but
laugh, and so, in a minute, she loosed me, and there I stood, not knowing
whether to feel like a fool or a hero; but inclining rather to the
latter. Then, at this minute, there came a second woman, who bowed to me
in a manner most formal, so that we might have been met in some
fashionable gathering, rather than in a cast-away hulk in the
lonesomeness and terror of that weed-choked sea; and at her coming all
the mirth of the men died out of them, and they became very sober, whilst
the buxom woman went backward for a piece, and seemed somewhat abashed.
Now, at all this, I was greatly puzzled, and looked from one to another
to learn what it might mean; but in the same moment the woman bowed
again, and said something in a low voice touching the weather, and after
that she raised her glance to my face, so that I saw her eyes, and they
were so strange and full of melancholy, that I knew on the instant why
she spoke and acted in so unmeaning a way; for the poor creature was out
of her mind, and when I learnt afterwards that she was the captain's
wife, and had seen him die in the arms of a mighty devil-fish, I grew to
understand how she had come to such a pass.

Now for a minute after I had discovered the woman's madness, I was so
taken aback as to be unable to answer her remark; but for this there
appeared no necessity; for she turned away and went aft towards the
saloon stairway, which stood open, and here she was met by a maid very
bonny and fair, who led her tenderly down from my sight. Yet, in a
minute, this same maid appeared, and ran along the decks to me, and
caught my two hands, and shook them, and