“In fact,” replied Captain Hull, “it is very astonishing.  But, take notice, there are only two letters in question here, two particular letters, and not a word chosen by chance.  After all, that dog which rang at the door of a convent to take possession of the plate intended for the poor passers-by, that other which commissioned at the same time with one of its kind, to turn the spit for two days each, and which refused to fill that office when its turn had not come, those two dogs, I say, advanced farther than Dingo into that domain of intelligence reserved for man.  Besides, we are in the presence of an inscrutable fact.  Of all the letters of that alphabet, Dingo has only chosen these two:  S and V. The others it does not even seem to know.  Therefore we must conclude that, for a reason which escapes us, its attention has been especially drawn to those two letters.”

“Ah!  Captain Hull,” replied the young novice, “if Dingo could speak!  Perhaps he would tell us what those two letters signify, and why it has kept a tooth ready for our head cook.”

“And what a tooth!” replied Captain Hull, as Dingo, opening its mouth, showed its formidable fangs.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VI.

A WHALE IN SIGHT.

It will be remembered that this singular incident was made, more than once, the subject of conversation held in the stern of the “Pilgrim” between Mrs. Weldon, Captain Hull, and the young novice.  The latter, more particularly, experienced an instinctive mistrust with regard to Negoro, whose conduct, meanwhile, merited no reproach.

In the prow they talked of it also, but they did not draw from it the same conclusions.  There, among the ship’s crew, Dingo passed merely for a dog that knew how to read, and perhaps even write, better than more than one sailor on board.  As for talking, if he did not do it, it was probably for good reasons that he kept silent.

“But, one of these fine days,” says the steersman, Bolton, “one fine day that dog will come and ask us how we are heading; if the wind is to the west-north-west-half-north, and we will have to answer him!  There are animals that speak!  Well, why should not a dog do as much if he took it into his head?  It is more difficult to talk with a beak than with a mouth!”

“No doubt,” replied the boatswain, Howik.  “Only it has never been known.”

It would have astonished these brave men to tell them that, on the contrary, it had been known, and that a certain Danish servant possessed a dog which pronounced distinctly twenty words.  But whether this animal comprehended what he said was a mystery.  Very evidently this dog, whose glottis was organized in a manner to enable him to emit regular sounds, attached no more sense to his words than do the paroquets, parrots, jackdaws, and magpies to theirs.  A phrase with animals is nothing more than a kind of song or spoken cry, borrowed from a strange language of which they do not know the meaning.