Chapter 5. A Sailor On Sea-Serpents

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_ CHAPTER FIVE. A SAILOR ON SEA-SERPENTS

"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.

I nodded.

"Why, do you know that in some parts out here the water's over four miles deep? They've measured it, my lad, and they know."

"Say, Mas'r Harry, that's more than your two mile," cried Tom.

"Ay, and I dessay there's parts where it's more than twice as deep, and when you come to think of the thousands of miles you can sail without nearing land, I say there's room for thousands of things such as nobody has ever seen."

"That's very true," I said.

"Why, I remember, down at home in Norfolk, when I was a boy, there was a big pool that people never fished, because they said there was no fish in it, and so it had been longer than anybody could recollect; and at last there was a plan made to drain a bit of bog close by, and a great dyke was cut. This set the farmer the pool belonged to thinking that if he cut a ditch to the big dyke, he could empty the old pool, and if he did he would get 'bout three acres of good dry ground instead of a black peaty pool; so he set a lot o' chaps at work one dry summer when they weren't busy, and we boys went to see it done. Now, you may believe me or you mayn't, my lads."

"Oh, we'll believe you; won't we, Mas'r Harry?" said Tom grinning.

"Well, I shall," I replied, and the sailor went on.

"When the water began to get low in that pool we used to see that there were fish in it, and at last there was a regular set out catching of them in the bits of holes where the water had left them."

"Oh, I say, Mas'r Harry, don't I wish we had been there!" cried Tom.

"Ay, it was fun, my lad, for we got scores of tench, some of 'em three and four pound weight, and there was six or seven carp ever so much bigger. One of 'em weighed nine pounds."

"That was a fine un," said Tom.

"But the biggest fish we got was a pike, and he was the only one there. That chap must have eat up all that had been before him, and he weighed three-and-thirty pound. He was close upon four foot long, and a gentleman there said if he had been in good condition he would have weighed five-and-forty, for he was as thin as a lath."

"I should have liked to see that fish," said Tom.

"Ay, it was a fine one. We boys daren't tackle him, he was so big," continued the sailor; "and then out of the mud they got bushels of great eels, some of the biggest I ever saw."

"Did you though?" said Tom.

"Ay, we did. When the water had got right down low, you could see 'em squirming about like snakes, and when they'd got all we could see they laid down boards over the mud, and punched about in the soft places when great fellows kept coming up to the top, and they got no end more. They were the biggest eels ever I see, and as fat as butter."

"Were they though?" said Tom.

"Ay, they were, my lads; and what I wanted to say was this--If so be as those fish could live in that bit of a three-acre pool without people knowing of their being there, don't you think there can be no end of big fishes and things in the great waters, thousands of miles from shore, such as menfolks has never seen?"

"Well, it do seem likely," said Tom; "but I never could swallow the sea-serpent."

"No, my lad, more likely to swallow you," said the sailor drily.

"But come now," said Tom drily. "Did you ever come across the great sea-serpent?"

"A mate o' mine," said the sailor, "told me he once saw out Newfoundland way part of a great cuttle-fish that had been washed ashore after a storm. It was a great jellyfish sort of thing, and it was thirty foot long; and he said he was sure it couldn't have been more than half of it, and the next day he saw one of its arms all full of suckers, and it was twenty foot long."

"Well, that must have been a pleasant sort of thing," said Tom, as I sat there listening thoughtfully, for the sailor seemed disposed to go on talking.

"I remember one year, fifteen years ago I daresay it is, we were going from Singapore to Hong Kong, and it was a strangely hot calm time, when all at once away about a mile on our lee bow I saw something rise up out of the sea five-and-twenty or thirty feet, as it seemed to be, but it went down again directly; and I rubbed my eyes, thinking it was fancy, but directly after out it came again, making a curious kind of thrust like as if it was a long neck of something under the water. Then down it went again, and I called the officer of the watch to look at it; and he came with his glass, laughing-like, but just then out it came again and he tried to get a glimpse of it through his glass, but he never could be quick enough, for there was no telling where the thing would dart out its head, and when it did come up it went down again directly.

"I was in hopes it would come nigher, but it went the other way, shooting out its head once when it was a good way off, and then we did not see it any more."

"And what do you think it was?" I said eagerly.

"Not knowing, can't say," he replied quietly. "Our officer said, half-laughing, half-puzzled like, that he should have said it was the sea-serpent, only no one would believe him if he did."

"Did you ever see anything else?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, my lad, I've seen a good many things that people wouldn't believe. I remember once seeing a curious thing off the muddy Malay coast, a long way north of Malacca, where you have mangrove swamps right down about the mouths of the rivers, places where the crocodiles go in and out."

"I say, how big's a crocodile?" said Tom sharply.

"All sizes, mate," said the sailor. "I've seen 'em two foot long and I've seen 'em twenty."

"Oh, not bigger than that?" said Tom contemptuously.

"No, my lad, that's the biggest I ever see, but I've heerd of 'em being seen five or six and twenty."

"But tell us about the strange thing you saw off the Malay coast," I said impatiently.

"Oh, ah! yes," he said, "that was just as the mist was lifting that lay between us and the coast. It was in a shallow muddy sea, and three or four of us was trying to make out the trees ashore, and wondering whether there would be any chance of our getting some fresh fruit and vegetables before long; when, all at once, one of my mates claps his hand on my shoulder, and he says--'Lookye yonder, mate.' 'Why, it's the sea-sarpent!' says another. 'Well, that is a rum un,' says another. And then we stood looking at what seemed to be a great snake swimming, with twenty or thirty feet of its neck outer water; and it was holding it up in a curve just like a swan, and sometimes its head was right up high and sometimes curved down close to the water with its neck in a loop, and all the time it was going along five or six knots an hour. 'Why, it _is_ the sea-sarpent!' says another of our mates, 'look all behind there; you can see its back as it swims, 'tis a hundred foot long, see if it isn't!' I looked, and sure enough it did seem to be a great length behind, nearly covered by the water; but, as I stood, it didn't seem to me like a snake swimming, for it seemed more than ever as if what we saw was a great slimy slaty-coloured thing, the make of a swan, swimming with its body nearly all under water and its head out; or, as I afterwards thought, just like one of the big West Indy turtles, such as you'll see by and by if you're lucky."

"Like a turtle?" I said.

"Yes, my lad," he continued, "a great flat-bodied turtle, that might have been thirty or forty foot long and half as much across, while it had a great neck like a swan."

"But what made you think it was like that?" I asked.

"Because you could see its back out of the water now and then, and it wasn't like a serpent, for it rose over like a turtle's, and sometimes it was higher out of the water sometimes lower; and what I saw as plain as could be was the water rippling up fore and aft, just as if the thing had nippers which it was working to send it along."

"Did your captain see it?" I asked at last.

"No, my lad, for we was too full of wonderment just then to do more than stare at the thing, till all at once it seemed to stretch its neck out straight with quite a dart, as if it had caught something to eat, and then it wasn't there."

"Didn't it come up again?" said Tom.

"No, my lad, we never see it no more."

"How far was it from the shore?" I asked.

"Five or six miles, my lad, more or less," he replied; and just then there was a call for all hands to take in sail, and our yarn-spinner went away. _

Read next: Chapter 6. Onward

Read previous: Chapter 4. Tom Catches The Complaint

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