“No! no! no!”

“Well, then, shall I tell you how one old whale knocked our boat clean into the air, bottom uppermost, and how we swam round her and managed to right her?”

“And went back to the ship and had your tea in bed and your clothes dried?”

“No, Eve,” replied David, with the utmost simplicity; “we got in and to work again, and killed the whale in less than half an hour, and planted our flag on her, and away after another.”

Then he told them how they harpooned one right whale, and by good luck were able. to make her fast to the stern of the ship.  “And, if you will believe me, Miss Fountain, though there was just a breath on and off right aft, and the foresail, jib and mizzen all set to catch it, she towed the ship astern a good cable’s length, and the last thing was she broke the harpoon shaft just below the line, and away she swam right in the wind’s eye.”

“And there was an end of her and your nasty, cruel, harpoon, and—­oh, I’m so pleased!”

“No, there wasn’t, Eve; we heard of both fish and harpoon again, but not for a good many years.”

“Mr. Dodd!”

“Yes, Miss Fountain.  It is curious, like many things that fall out at sea, but not so wonderful as her towing a ship of four hundred tons, with the foresail, mizzen, and jib all aback.  Well, sir, did you ever hear of Nantucket?  It is a port in the United States; and our harpooner happened to be there full four years after we lost this whale.  Some Yankee whalers were treating him to the best of grog, and it was brag Briton, brag Yankee, according to custom whenever these two met.  Well, our man had no more invention than a stone; so he was getting the worst of it till he bethought him of this whale; so he up and told how he had struck a right whale in the Pacific, and she had towed the ship with her sails aback, at least her foresail, mizzen, and jib, only he didn’t tell it short like me, but as long as the Red Sea, with the day and the hour, the latitude (within four or five degrees, I take it), and what we had done a week before, and what we had not done, all by way of prologue, and for fear of weathering the horn—­tic, tic—­the point of the story too soon.  When he had done there was a general howl of laughter, and they began to cap lies with him, and so they bantered him most cruelly, by all accounts; but at last a long silent chap, weather-beaten to the color of rosewood, put in his word.

“‘What was the ship’s name, mate?’

“‘The Connemara,’ says he.

“‘And what is your name?’ So he told him, ‘Jem Green.’

“The other brings a great mutton fist down on the table, and makes all the glasses dance.  ‘You stay at your moorings till I come back,’ says he.  ‘I have got something belonging to you, Jem Green,’ and he sheered off.  The others lay to and passed the grog.  Presently the long one comes back with a harpoon steel in his hand; there was Connemara stamped on it, and also ‘James Green’ graved with a knife.  ‘Is that yours?’ ‘Is my hand mine?’ says Jem; ’but wasn’t there a broken shaft to it!”