my own eyes, and I was as wide awake as
you are, and not caulking?'

"`The sea sarpint!' I repeated scornfully, laughing again in a way that
made Gil wild. `Who ever heard tell of such a thing, except in a Yankee
yarn?'

"`And why shouldn't there be a big snake in the sea the same as there
are big snakes on land like the Bow constreetar, as is read of in books
of history, Jim Newman? Some folks are so cocksure, that they won't
believe nothing but what they sees for themselves. I wonder who at
home, now, would credit that there are some monkeys here in Afrikey that
are bigger than a man and walk upright; and you yourself, Jim, have told
me that when you were in Australy you seed rabbits that were more than
ten foot high when they stood on their hind-legs, and that could jump a
hundred yards at one leap.'

"`So I have, Gil Saul,' sez I, a bit nettled at what he said, and the
way he said it, `and what I says I stick to. I have seen at Port Philip
kangaroos, which are just like big rabbits with upright ears, as big as
I've said; and I've seen 'em, too, jump more than twice the distance any
horse could.'

"`And why then,' sez he, argumentifying on to me like a shot, `and why
then shouldn't there be such a thing as the sea sarpint?'

"This flummuxed me a bit, for I couldn't find an answer handy, so I axed
him another question to get out of my quandary.

"`But why, Gil, did you say you had seed a ghost, when it was a
sarpint?'

"This time _he_ was bothered for a moment.

"`Because, Jim,' sez he, after a while, `it appeared so awful to me when
I saw it coming out of the white mist with its glaring red eyes and
terrible beak. It was a ghost I feels, if it wasn't the sea sarpint;
and whether or no it bodes no good to the man wot sees it, I know. I'm
a doomed man.'

"I couldn't shake him from that belief, though I thought the whole thing
was fancy on his part, and I turned into my hammock soon after we got
below, without a thought more about the matter--it didn't stop my caulk,
I know. But, ah! that was only in the early morning. Before the day
was done, as Gil had said, that conversation was recalled to me in a
terrible way--ah, a terrible way!" the old sailor repeated impressively,
taking off his tarpaulin hat, and wiping his forehead with his
handkerchief, as if the recollection of the past awed him even now. He
looked so serious that I could not laugh, inclined as I was to ridicule
any such story as that