Page:The land of enchantment (1907, Cassell).djvu/99

 Ben glared at this daring interruption. “‘Dove,’ I said, Master Charles, and ‘dove’ I’ll stand by. Now I put it to you, Master Charles, as between man and man, you say ‘drive, drove’; ‘thrive, throve,’ and “strive, strove,’ don’t you? Then why not ‘dive, dove’?”

As Charlie seemed quite unprepared to combat this convincing argument, the old sailor triumphantly continued. “Yes, down that leviathan dove with me on his back a-holding on to the harpoon like grim death.

“Well, we wallowed in the Arctic Ocean until I’d only got half a squeak left in me, but just when I thought I should be drownded sure-ly, an idea flashed across my mind quite sudden-like. Why not make use of the rope a-hanging from the harpoon? I seized hold of it and shot up to the surface, and jolly glad I was to fill my pipes once more with the blessed air. The leviathan kept bowling along a-doing his forty-knot business down below with me in tow at the end of the rope a-floating on my back.

“We kept on this way for ever so long, but by-and-by, to my great joy, I sighted land, and found we were making straight for it. Now, I knew my whale must come up sooner or later to breathe—’twas only a question of time—and so, sure enough, in about a quarter of an hour up he came, close to the shore. I’ve no doubt in my own mind he’d gone a little scranny with fright and pain, and had lost his bearings altogether—anyway, he ran aground. ‘Now,’ thinks I, ‘as this here leviathan seems short of his change, what’s the reason?’ Because, you know, Master Charles, there’s generally a reason for everything. “Maybe it’s dispepsy from swallowing the boat and seven tough mariners ; maybe it’s the iron a-sticking in his wits—if that’s so another inch or two might finish him.’ So I hauled on the slack of the rope and clambered on to his back. Then I got hold of the harpoon, and pulled and hung on to it for all I was worth, and the iron went little by little into him until, sure enough, his flippers ceased to wobble, and he was as dead as a door-nail. He’d stranded on a rocky little island some distance from the mainland, and the question now was—what to do next. ’Twas too far a swim to the distant shore. I must stay where I was until somebody picked me up, unless, meanwhile, I died for want of victuals to keep me a-going, or I perished of cold, for I give you my word, Master Charles, the nights up north are freezers, and no mistake! I thought, too, a Polar bear might chance to come along and want me for his dinner, and so, what with one thing and another, I was feeling rather low, when