“You were always fond of birds, and beasts, and fishes, weren’t you, Ben?”
“I was, Nie, lad, and never regretted it but once.”
“How was that?”
“I was down with that awful fever we call Yellow-Jack; and, oh! Nie, it seemed to me that at first all the awful creatures ever I had seen on earth or in the waters came back to haunt my dream; and often and often I awoke screaming with fright. Indeed, the dream had hardly faded when my eyes were opened, for I would see, perhaps, a weird-looking camel or dromedary’s head drawing away from the bed, or a sea-elephant, a bear, an ursine seal, or an old-fashioned-looking puffin.
“In my fever, thirst was terribly severe, and I used to dream I was diving in the blue pellucid water of the Indian Ocean, down—down—down to beds of snow-white coral sands, with submarine flowers of far more than earthly beauty blooming around me; suddenly I should perceive that I was being watched by the terrible and human-like eyes of a monk shark, or—I shudder even now, Nie, to think of it—I should see an awful head—the uranoscope’s—with extended jaws and glaring protruding eyes. Then I would awake in a fright, shivering with cold, yet bathed in perspiration. But, Nie, when I began to get well a change came o’er the spirit of my dreams. The terrible heads, the horrid fishes, and the slimy monsters of the deep appeared no more; in their place came beautiful birds, and scenery far more lovely than ever I had clapped a waking eye upon. So, in one way, Nie, I was rewarded for my love for natural history.”
“What a lovely day!” I remarked, looking around me.
“Yes,” replied Ben; “but do you know what this very spot where we are now standing puts me in mind of—lake and all, I mean?”
“I couldn’t guess, I’m sure,” I replied.
“Well, it is just like the place where I was nearly killed by a panther, and would have been, but for my man Friday.”
“He must have been a useful nigger, then,” I said, “that man Friday.”