And so it was, for next moment down came Vike with a rabbit in his mouth.
"Why, Vike," cried Duncan, "we left you on board."
"Very likely," said Vike, speaking with his tail and eyes as he lay there panting from his exertions, with about two yards--more or less--of pink tongue hanging out over his alabaster teeth. "Very likely, but five hundred yards of a swim isn't much to a dog like me. And what is more. Wowff, wowff! you had no business to bolt away without me. Wowff! Don't do it again!"
"Well, now," said Talbot to his mate next day at breakfast, "what do you say to stay here till we lay in a real good cargo, for outside the elephants are in thousands, and the poor things have young beside them too."
"The idea is excellent, sir," said Morgan, "and I have another."
"Out with it, mate. We can't have too many ideas in this world, if we mean to be successful. These ideas of ours don't all hold water; but then we can go over them at our leisure and pick out the best."
"That's it, sir. Well, why not get all the skins we can procure, and then make off the oil. Coals are plentiful on shore, and we have cauldrons, you know."
"Bravo! Morgan. That is just what we shall do."
So after breakfast boats were called away, and returned in the evening laden to the gunwales.
So the vessel was shifted nearer to the open sea, and thus the whalers could go and return twice or even thrice in one day with their hauls.