Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/44

 except old Jack, the man who had been so angry. The captain sent the cook after him. When the cook returned, he was ordered by the captain to get half-a-dozen bottles of old Jamaica out of the locker. After we had "spliced the mainbrace" several times, the captain addressed us in the following words: "You are the best  sailor-men that ever lived in a ship’s forecastle, and I  want you all to go with me on my next voyage." We all left the brig together, and were soon at the head of  the wharf, when we missed old Jack. He soon hove in sight, however, with his head hanging down, looking  very serious and pale. We asked him what the matter was with him. He said that he had been seriously thinking about the old man. "What of him?" we asked. "Well, now, my shipmates, he is not so bad, after all, is he?" Just so, to be raised from a boy to a man — from eight dollars to ten — is not so bad, after all, is it?

I never saw the sea more alive with its inhabitants. Its surface seemed to be covered with schools of whales, sharks, flying fish, bonitoes, dolphins, and porpoises. We caught several of the latter, and made a fish or porpoise dinner.

Weather fair, with a light wind from the north, and a few fleecy clouds overhead. A very large water-spout was seen on the lee quarter, and another forming close  aboard. About half a mile to leeward we saw what looked like a school of fish, fifty or sixty feet broad, on  the surface of the water. It soon became much disturbed, and looked as if boiling. A bluish vapor or steam arose from it, and directly over it was a heavy  black cloud resembling a huge balloon.