ion, for the house belonged
to her, the Widow Ducket brought a chair and put it in the hall close
to the open front door, and Dorcas brought another chair and seated
herself by the side of the widow.

"Do all you sailormen belong down there at the bay?" asked Mrs. Ducket;
thus the conversation began, and in a few minutes it had reached a
point at which Captain Bird thought it proper to say that a great many
strange things happen to seamen sailing on the sea which lands-people
never dream of.

"Such as anything in particular?" asked the widow, at which remark
Dorcas clasped her hands in expectancy.

At this question each of the mariners took his pipe from his mouth and
gazed upon the floor in thought.

"There's a good many strange things happened to me and my mates at sea.
Would you and that other lady like to hear any of them?" asked Captain
Bird.

"We would like to hear them if they are true," said the widow.

"There's nothing happened to me and my mates that isn't true," said
Captain Bird, "and here is something that once happened to me: I was on
a whaling v'yage when a big sperm-whale, just as mad as a fiery bull,
came at us, head on, and struck the ship at the stern with such
tremendous force that his head crashed right through her timbers and he
went nearly half his length into her hull. The hold was mostly filled
with empty barrels, for we was just beginning our v'yage, and when he
had made kindling-wood of these there was room enough for him. We all
expected that it wouldn't take five minutes for the vessel to fill and
go to the bottom, and we made ready to take to the boats; but it turned
out we didn't need to take to no boats, for as fast as the water rushed
into the hold of the ship, that whale drank it and squirted it up
through the two blow-holes in the top of his head, and as there was an
open hatchway just over his head, the water all went into the sea
again, and that whale kept working day and night pumping the water out
until we beached the vessel on the island of Trinidad--the whale
helping us wonderful on our way over by the powerful working of his
tail, which, being outside in the water, acted like a propeller. I
don't believe anything stranger than that ever happened to a
whaling-ship."

"No," said the widow, "I don't believe anything ever did."

Captain Bird now looked at Captain Sanderson, and the latter took his
pipe out of his mouth and said that in all his sailing around the world