Then setting his glass down on the binnacle, he took Tite by the arm, and, whispering something in his ear, led him to the taffrail, as if he had something of importance to communicate in private.
"You have a sweetheart at home, I take it, Mr. Toodleburg?" he said, inquiringly, and assuming a very serious manner. "Every young man like you should have a sweetheart at home. Somebody to think about. Somebody to cheer one up. Them we leaves at home is all men like you and me go through these hardships and disappointments for."
Tite blushed and smiled, and made an evasive reply.
"No use denying it, my hearty," he resumed. "Knew ye had a sweetheart thinkin' of ye at home. Show her by yer conduct while yer away that yer worthy of her when yer get home. My sweetheart, God bless her! is all the sunlight I have in a voyage of this kind. My little wife is my sweetheart, she is, Mr. Toodleburg. She an' the two little angels are the sunlight of my heart. There ain't nobody sails the sea has a trimmer little craft of a sweetheart nor I have." He paused for a minute, as if to collect his distracted thoughts. "The man that would bring trouble to her door while I'm away—he would'nt be a man, Mr. Toodleburg," he resumed, still preserving a serious countenance. "Had an ugly dream last night. That's what troubles me. Anything happens to me, Mr. Toodleburg, you're the man I looks to as a friend to my little sweetheart and them two angels at home."
Tite assured him that he would do as he desired, and at the same time tried to dispel from his mind the gloomy forebodings impressed on it by the dream.
"Never had an ugly dream of that kind that it did'nt foretell somethin' bad, Mr. Toodleburg," he replied to a remark made by Tite, that it was not wise to give one's self uneasiness concerning dreams. "There's sharks a' land as well as sharks a' sea. Keep that in your mind, my hearty. And I dreamed that my time had come, and my poor little sweetheart at home was surrounded by sharks ready to devour her. Made my blood boil, it did. Waked up feelin' for a harpoon to throw among 'em. My ghost'll haunt the man that wrongs my little sweetheart.
"That's not all, my hearty. Somebody's brought bad luck aboard—that's certain. A voyage begun in bad luck, as this ere voyage has been, never ends in good luck. But you're young, and so cheer up. Look ahead, and never let present misfortunes discourage you.
"England honors Scoresby to this day. And Scoresby was successful after two voyages that ruined his owners. As to them mermaids frightening away the whales, it's all a superstition. The natives on Queen Charlotte's island have a superstition that there is an island down north of them, called No Man's island—for no man, as they say, was ever seen on it—where there is a subterranean sea peopled by these mermaids; and that these mermaids have built them a palace, where they hold their revels and do all sorts of strange things, even to decoying navigators into it. That story won't do. Don't believe a word of it, Mr. Toodleburg."
That morning about ten o'clock the lookout aloft called, "Whale, O!" The glad announcement sent a thrill of joy over every one on board. The crew turned out with cheerful faces, and every one looked eagerly in the direction pointed to by the man aloft.
"Where away?" was the quick enquiry from the deck.