A Simpleton Part 42

This amused her ladyship a little, but not so much as the postscript, which was indeed the neatest thing in its way she had met with, and she had some experience, too.

"P.S.--I say, Cicely, I think I should like to marry you. Would you mind?"

Let us defy time and s.p.a.ce to give you Lady Cicely's reply: "I should enjoy it of all things, Taddy. But, alas! I am too young."

N.B.--She was twenty-seven, and Tad sixteen. To be sure, Tad was four feet eleven, and she was only five feet six and a half.

To return to my narrative (with apologies), this meeting of the vessels caused a very agreeable excitement that day; but a greater was in store.

In the afternoon, Tadcaster, Staines, and the princ.i.p.al officers of the ship, being at dinner in the captain's cabin, in came the officer of the watch, and reported a large spar on the weather-bow.

"Well, close it, if you can; and let me know if it looks worth picking up."

He then explained to Lord Tadcaster that, on a cruise, he never liked to pa.s.s a spar, or anything that might possibly reveal the fate of some vessel or other.

In the middle of his discourse the officer came in again, but not in the same cool business way: he ran in excitedly, and said, "Captain, the signalman reports it ALIVE!"

"Alive?--a spar! What do you mean? Something alive ON it, eh?"

"No, sir; alive itself."

"How can that be? Hail him again. Ask him what it is."

The officer went out, and hailed the signalman at the mast-head. "What is it?"

"Sea-sarpint, I think."

This hail reached the captain's ears faintly. However, he waited quietly till the officer came in and reported it; then he burst out, "Absurd!

there is no such creature in the universe. What do you say, Dr.

Staines?--It is in your department."

"The universe in my department, captain?"

"Haw! haw! haw!" went Fitzroy and two more.

"No, you rogue, the serpent."

Dr. Staines, thus appealed to, asked the captain if he had ever seen small snakes out at sea.

"Why, of course. Sailed through a mile of them once, in the archipelago."

"Sure they were snakes?"

"Quite sure; and the biggest was not eight feet long."

"Very well, captain; then sea-serpents exist, and it becomes a mere question of size. Now which produces the larger animals in every kind,--land or sea? The grown elephant weighs, I believe, about five tons. The very smallest of the whale tribe weighs ten; and they go as high as forty tons. There are smaller fish than the whale, that are four times as heavy as the elephant. Why doubt, then, that the sea can breed a snake to eclipse the boa-constrictor? Even if the creature had never been seen, I should, by mere reasoning from a.n.a.logy, expect the sea to produce a serpent excelling the boa-constrictor, as the lobster excels a crayfish of our rivers: see how large things grow at sea! the salmon born in our rivers weighs in six months a quarter of a pound, or less; it goes out to sea, and comes back in one year weighing seven pounds.

So far from doubting the large sea-serpents, I believe they exist by the million. The only thing that puzzles me is, why they should ever show a nose above water; they must be very numerous, I think."

Captain Hamilton laughed, and said, "Well, this IS new. Doctor, in compliment to your opinion, we will go on deck, and inspect the reptile you think so common." He stopped at the door, and said, "Doctor, the saltcellar is by you. Would you mind bringing it on deck? We shall want a little to secure the animal."

So they all went on deck right merrily.

The captain went up a few ratlines in the mizzen rigging, and looked to windward, laughing all the time: but, all of a sudden, there was a great change in his manner. "Good heavens, it is alive--LUFF!"

The helmsman obeyed; the news spread like wildfire. Mess kids, grog kids, pipes, were all let fall, and some three hundred sailors cl.u.s.tered on the rigging like bees, to view the long-talked-of monster.

It was soon discovered to be moving lazily along, the propelling part being under water, and about twenty-five feet visible. It had a small head for so large a body, and, as they got nearer, rough scales were seen, ending in smaller ones further down the body. It had a mane, but not like a lion's, as some have pretended. If you have ever seen a pony with a hog-mane, that was more the character of this creature's mane, if mane it was.

They got within a hundred yards of it, and all saw it plainly, scarce believing their senses.

When they could get no nearer for the wind, the captain yielded to that instinct which urges man always to kill a curiosity, "to encourage the rest," as saith the witty Voltaire. "Get ready a gun--best shot in the ship lay and fire it."

This was soon done. Bang went the gun. The shot struck the water close to the brute, and may have struck him under water, for aught I know.

Any way, it sorely disturbed him; for he reared into the air a column of serpent's flesh that looked as thick as the maintopmast of a seventy-four, opened a mouth that looked capacious enough to swallow the largest buoy anchor in the ship, and, with a strange grating noise between a bark and a hiss, dived, and was seen no more.

When he was gone, they all looked at one another like men awaking from a dream.

Staines alone took it quite coolly. It did not surprise him in the least. He had always thought it incredible that the boa-constrictor should be larger than any sea-snake. That idea struck him as monstrous and absurd. He noted the sea-serpent in his journal, but with this doubt, "Semble--more like a very large eel."

Next day they crossed the line. Just before noon a young gentleman burst into Staines's cabin, apologizing for want of ceremony; but if Dr. Staines would like to see the line, it was now in sight from the mizzentop.

"Glad of it, sir," said Staines; "collect it for me in the ship's buckets, if you please. I want to send A LINE to friends at home."

Young gentleman buried his hands in his pockets, walked out in solemn silence, and resumed his position on the lee-side of the quarter-deck.

Nevertheless, this opening, coupled with what he had heard and read, made Staines a little uneasy, and he went to his friend Fitzroy, and said, "Now, look here: I am at the service of you experienced and humorous mariners. I plead guilty at once to the crime of never having pa.s.sed the line; so, make ready your swabs, and lather me; your ship's sc.r.a.per, and shave me; and let us get it over. But Lord Tadcaster is nervous, sensitive, prouder than he seems, and I'm not going to have him driven into a fit for all the Neptunes and Amphitrites in creation."

Fitzroy heard him out, then burst out laughing. "Why, there is none of that game in the Royal Navy," said he. "Hasn't been this twenty years."

"I'm so sorry," said Dr. Staines. "If there's a form of wit I revere, it is practical joking."

"Doctor, you are a satirical beggar."

Staines told Tadcaster, and he went forward and chaffed his friend the quartermaster, who was one of the forecastle wits.

"I say, quartermaster, why doesn't Neptune come on board?"

Dead silence.

"I wonder what has become of poor old Nep?"

"Gone ash.o.r.e!" growled the seaman. "Last seen in Rateliff Highway. Got a shop there--lends a shilling in the pound on seamen's advance tickets."

"Oh! and Amphitrite?"

"Married the s.e.xton at Wapping."

"And the Nereids?"