"It do puzzle me, Mas'r Harry," said Tom, as we sat in the chains one
bright, sunny day, when the storm was over, but a fine stiff breeze was
helping the toiling engines to send the steamer along at a splendid
rate.
"What puzzles you, Tom?" I asked.
"Why, where all the water comes from. Just look at it now. Here have
we been coming along for more'n a week, and it's been nothing but water,
water, water."
"And we could go on for months, Tom, sailing, sailing away into the
distant ocean, and still it would be nothing but water, water, water."
"Well, but what's the good of it all, Mas'r Harry? Why, if I was to get
up a company to do it, and drain it all off, the bottom of the sea here
would be all land, and people could walk or have railways instead of
being cooped up in a great long tossing box like this, and made so--Oh,
dear me, it nearly makes me ill again to think of it."
"Ah! that would be a capital arrangement, Tom," I said smiling. "What a
lot more room there would be on the earth then!"
"Wouldn't there, Mas'r Harry?" he cried eagerly.
"A tremendous deal more, Tom. Every poor fellow might have an estate of
his own; but where would you drain the water to?"
"Where would I drain the water to, Mas'r Harry?"
"To be sure," I said, enjoying his puzzled look. "If you take it away
from here you must send it somewhere else."
"Of course, Mas'r Harry, of course," he replied eagerly. "Oh, I'd
employ thousands of navvies to dig a big drain and let the water right
off."
"Yes, I understand that," I replied; "but where is the drain to lead?"
"Where's the drain to lead?"
"Yes; where is the water to run?"
"Where's the water to run?" said Tom, scratching his head. "Where's the
water to run, Mas'r Harry? Why, I never thought of that."
"No, Tom, you never thought of that; and you can't alter it, so it is of
no use to grumble."
"Don't you two young fellows slacken your hold there," said a sailor,
looking over at us.
"'Taint likely, is it?" said Tom grinning; "why, where should we be if
we did?"
"Down at the bottom some day," growled the sailor as he walked away, and
Tom looked at me.
"Just as if it was likely that a fellow would let go and try and drown
hisself, Mas'r Harry. Think it's deep here?" he added as he gazed down
into the dense blue water.
"Yes, Tom, very," I replied, gazing down as well, for the water was
beautifully transparent, and the foam left by the bows of the steamer
sparkled in the brilliant sunshine as we rushed along.
"Deep, Tom?" I said, "yes, very."
"How deep, Mas'r Harry; forty or fifty foot?"
"Two or three miles, p'r'aps, Tom," I replied.
"Go along! Two or three miles indeed!" he said, laughing.
"I don't know that it is here, Tom," I continued, "but I believe they
have found the depth nearly double that in some places."
"What! have they measured it, Mas'r Harry?"
"Yes, Tom."
"With a bit of string?"
"With a sounding-line, Tom."
"And a bit of lead at the end?"
"Yes, Tom, a sounding-lead with a great bullet, which they left at the
bottom when they pulled the line in again."
"Think o' that, now!" cried Tom. "Why, I was wondering whether a fellow
couldn't go down in a diving-bell and see what the bottom was like, and
look at the fishes--say, Mas'r Harry, some of 'em must be whoppers."
"Ay, my lad," said the same sailor who had before spoken, and he rested
his arms on the bulwark and stared down at us; "there's some big chaps
out at sea here."
"Could we catch some of 'em?" asked Tom.
"Oh, yes," said the sailor. "Dessay you could, my lad, but I wouldn't
advise you to try a sixpenny fishing-line with a cork float and a
three-joint hazel rod with a whalebone top--you know that sort, eh?"
"Know it? I should think I do," cried Tom. "So does Mas'r Harry here.
We used to ketch the gudgeons like hooroar down in the sharp water below
the mill up at home."
"Ah!" said the sailor, "so used I when I was a boy; but there ain't no
gudgeons here."
"What sort o' fish are there, then?" said Tom.
"Oh, all sorts: bonito, and albicore, and flying-fish, sometimes
dolphins and sharks."
"Any whales?" cried Tom, winking at me.
"Sometimes; not very often, my lad," said the sailor quietly. "They
lies up in the cold water, more among the ice. We're getting every day
more into the warm."
"I'm sorry there ar'n't any whales," said Tom. "How long might they be,
say the biggest you ever see?"
"Oh!" said the sailor, "they mostly runs thirty or forty foot long, but
I saw one once nearly eighty-foot."
"What a whopper!" said Tom, giving me a droll look.
"Sounds big," said the sailor, "but out here in the ocean, my lad,
seventy or eighty-foot only seems to be a span long, and no size at all,
while the biggest shark I ever see--"
"How long was that?" said Tom; "a hundred foot?"
"No," said the sailor drily; "he was eighteen-foot long--a long, thin,
hungry-looking fellow, with a mouth and jaws that would have taken off
one of your legs like a shot."
"Well, but if an eighty-foot whale don't look big," said Tom, "an
eighteen-foot shark must be quite a shrimp."
"Ah! you wouldn't think so," said the sailor quietly, "if you were
overboard and one of 'em after you."
"But I thought you'd got monsters out here at sea," said Tom, giving me
another of his cunning looks, as much as to say, "You see how I'll lead
him on directly."
"So we have," said the sailor, staring straight out before him, "only it
don't do to talk about 'em."
"Why?" I said quickly, for the man's quiet, serious way impressed me.
"Well, you see, sir," he replied, "if a man says he's seen a monster out
at sea, and it isn't a whale which people knows of, having been seen,
they say directly he's a liar, and laugh at him, and that isn't
pleasant."
"Of course not," I replied, "if he is telling the truth."
"Of course, sir, if he's telling the truth; and, take it altogether,
what I know of sailors after being at sea thirty-two year, beginning as
a boy of twelve, sailors ain't liars."
"Well, let's hope not," I said.
"They ain't indeed, sir," said the man earnestly. "They do foolish
things, drinking too much when they get ashore after a voyage, and
spending their money like asses, as the saying goes; but a chap as is at
sea in the deep waters, and amongst storms and the lonesomeness of the
great ocean, gets to be a serious sort of fellow--he isn't the liar and
romancer some people seem to think."
"No, but you do spin yarns, some of you?" said Tom.
"Well, yes, of course," said the sailor. "Why not sometimes for a bit
of fun? but when a man's in 'arnest he ought to be believed."
"Of course," said Tom; "but I say, mate, you never see the sea-serpent,
did you?"
The man did not answer for a few moments, but stood gazing straight out
to sea before saying quietly:
"I don't know. A man sees some curious things out at sea in the course
of thirty years; but he gets precious cautious about telling what he's
seen after being laughed at, and chaffed when he's been only telling the
simple truth. Why, I remember, once when I was out with one captain, we
saw what we thought was the sea-serpent or something of the kind, and
observations were taken, it was all entered in the log, and sent to the
papers afterwards; and the skipper got laughed nearly out of his skin
for a romancer. He was a queen's captain--man-o'-war it was, and all
was as regular as could be; officers and men saw it all, but they were
so roasted afterwards that, when anything of the kind's seen now, they
say nothing about it."
"But do you really mean to say you believe that there are monsters in
the ocean that we have no regular account of in books?"
He turned to me, and pointed out to sea.
"Isn't there room there for thousands of great things, my lad; such as
we've never seen or heard of?" he said.