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 passed the line; so, make ready your swabs, and lather me; your ship’s scraper, 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 ashore!” 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 sexton at Wapping.”

“And the Nereids?”

“Neruds!” (scratching his head.) “I harn’t kept my eye on them small craft.  But I believe they are selling oysters in the port of Leith.”