Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/427

 hatch,—tall, dark, beautiful, like the spirit of departed night. She was followed by Letta,—graceful, fair, sunny, like the spirit of the coming morn.

"Sunbeam, ahoy!" came up through the cabin skylight at that moment, like the sonorous voice of Neptune.

"Well, grunkle Rik, w'at is it?" shouted Sammy, in silvery tones, from his father's shoulder.

"Grunkle" was the outcome of various efforts made to teach Sammy to call the old captain grand-uncle.

"Where have you stowed away my hair-brush, you rascal?" cried the voice of thunder.

"It 's under my bunk, grunkle; I was bracking yous boots vith it."

The thunder subsided in tempestuous mutterings, and Sammy, feeling that he had begun the day well, struggled out of his father's arms and went careering round the deck into every possible position of danger. He kept them all lively until Stumps caught him and extinguished him, for a time, with breakfast.

"Uncle Rik," said Sam, while that meal was being discussed in the snuggest little cabin that could be imagined, "did you hear of the extraordinary manner in which a whale was caught by a telegraph cable lately?"