Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/260

 Ronny looked on with grave eyes. He had often heard of a whale, but never before seen one.

"Will Jonah come out by and by?" he asked Jacynth, his constant companion, who held him standing on the rail.

"No, I think not," Jacynth answered gravely. "Jonah, you remember, did not find the quarters so comfortable that he was likely ever to seek them again of his own free will. Residence in a whale, however temporary, is an experience that satisfies an ordinary man for a lifetime. The whale is only spouting, getting rid of superfluous water taken in from the great depths."

"Well," said Ronny, his quick sympathies moved in another direction, "he must get very thirsty if he does that often."

Ronny had thriven wondrously on the broad Atlantic, which had in no sense proved a disappointment to him. He was a prime favorite with all on board, the pet of the sailors, more particularly of the bos'n, whose whistle he was sometimes privileged to sound. Next to Jacynth he was fonder of the bos'n than anyone else, even than of his father, whose mood was less attuned to that of the light-hearted, healthy lad whom the stewards did their best to endow with dyspepsia by surreptitiously feeding him at unlawful hours with spoil from the dessert. He would sit by the hour on a coil of ropes, his big eyes fixed intently on the brown-visaged bos'n, who told