"Yes, old Jack; that's her name. There is a navy yarn told about that mountain which I'm not sure I should tell you, although I was told it myself by a priest."
"Oh yes, tell me."
"Well, it's a warning to all contractors anyhow, who sometimes supply very bad biscuits to England's fighting navy. Once upon a time, then, when the gallant Roarer, a shoudy-boudy old seventy-four, and terribly badly found in the matter of hard tack—her biscuits being half dust, half weevils—was cruising around here, the officer of the watch, one dark night in the middle watch, called all hands to witness a terrible but somewhat ridiculous sight.
"The ship was sailing close past Sicily, and not far from Etna, which had been in eruption for some weeks; only they appeared to be burning up the slack and the cinders in the crater just then, because there was plenty of light but not much smoke.
"Well, all hands came tumbling up, thinking perhaps a Frenchman was bearing down upon them, and that they wouldn't have any more sleep till they sent her to Davy Jones's locker.
"But it wasn't that.
"The captain himself stood on the poop, with his battered old telescope to his eye, and turned towards the mountain top.
"The eyes of all the crew were now bent in the same direction. No wonder that they stared in astonishment, rubbed their eyes, and stared again. For there, on the very brink of the crater, stood two tall figures, wrestling, as it were, for the mastery. One was speedily made out to be Mr. Pipeclay, a baker of Portsmouth, who supplied biscuits to the royal navy—biscuits that had been once or twice on a voyage round the world in the merchant service.* The other figure was soon discovered by the captain to be none other than Auld Nickie Ben himself.
* I know for a fact that, not longer ago than the sixties, old ship-biscuits that had been several cruises in whalers and sealers to the Arctic regions, and condemned, were bought up and sold to the navy. Poor Jack!