. . . . . .
Considering the balloon perfectly safe, Antonio agreed to let Teenie come with him on his next ascent. And brave indeed she must have been to make it. That she was a little afraid at first was indisputable. But soon she brightened up, and clapped her tiny hands with joy when she beheld the great sea-serpents through the telescope.
“But,” she said, “O ’Tonio, I ’spects they is alive after all. Just say they is to please me.”
It will be observed that Teenie’s English was not so grammatical as it might have been. But she had really two dialects, that of the fireside, and that which was only taken out and aired in her school-room, then stowed away again to be used, as she phrased it, when she went on shore to some grand party.
Would that ever be?
Who could tell?
A month after this, Antonio’s special boat was ready to launch.
It was an ordinary whaler, but fortified in front with a straight up and down plough-like cutwater high up out of the sea, which divided the weeds and permitted them to fall off astern. The boat was propelled by oars in the ordinary way, but the progress was exceedingly slow, and at no time was a greater rate of speed obtained than two miles an hour.
The boat had three men a side, with Antonio and Barclay astern, and these took turn and turn steering the whaler with an oar, with a species of sculling motion well known to visitors to the far-off Arctic Ocean.
The boat was well provisioned, and carried plenty of good water.