by her own people for her prophetic abilities.
Before her death, she had told him that he would die suddenly,
violently, in a struggle with a white man in a far-off country, but that
the white man would die too by his hand. She had also told him that he
would be a great traveller and hunter upon the sea. As he went on, his
speech became almost unintelligible, being mingled with fragments of a
language I had never heard before; moreover, he spoke as a man who is
only half awake. A strange terror got hold of me, for I began to think
he was going mad, and perhaps about to run a-mok, as the Malays do when
driven frantic by the infliction of real or fancied wrongs.

But he gradually returned to his old self, to my great relief, and I
ventured somewhat timidly to remind him of the esteem in which he was
held by all hands; even the skipper, I ventured to say, respected him,
although, from some detestable form of ill-humour, he had chosen to
be so sneering and insulting towards him. He shook his head sadly, and
said, "My dear boy, youse de only man aboard dis ship--wite man, dat
is--dat don't hate an' despise me becawse ob my colour, wich I cain't
he'p; an' de God you beliebe in bless you fer dat. As fer me, w'at I
done tole you's true,'n befo' bery little w'ile you see it COME true.
'N w'en DAT happens w'at's gwine ter happen, I'se real glad to tink it
gwine ter be better fer you--gwine ter be better fer eberybody 'bord de
CACH'LOT; but I doan keer nuffin 'bout anybody else. So long." He held
out his great black hand, and shook mine heartily, while a big tear
rolled down his face and fell on the deck. And with that he left me a
prey to a very whirlpool of conflicting thoughts and fears.

The night was a long and weary one--longer and drearier perhaps because
of the absence of the darkness, which always made it harder to sleep.
An incessant day soon becomes, to those accustomed to the relief of the
night, a burden grievous to be borne; and although use can reconcile
us to most things, and does make even the persistent light bearable,
in times of mental distress or great physical weariness one feels
irresistibly moved to cry earnestly, "Come, gentle night."

When I came on deck at eight bells, it was a stark calm. The watch,
under Mistah Jones' direction, were busy scrubbing decks with the usual
thoroughness, while the captain, bare-footed, with trouser-legs and
shirt-sleeves rolled up, his hands on his hips and a portentous fr