"With glue made out of albacores we caught, to be sure. Well, as I was saying, we was so weak there wasn't a man aboard could reach the maintop, an' the man at the wheel had two men to hold him up. Things was so, thus, an' in such case, when, about eight hells one arternoon, the lookout at the masthead--"
"Thought you couldn't climb? How'd he get there?" said the same skeptic.
"Give me time, Parmiter, and you'll know all about the hows an' whys, notwithstandin's and sobeits. He'd been there for a week, for why? 'cos he couldn't get down. We passed him up a quarter pint o' water and a biscuit or two every day by a halyard.
"Well, as I was sayin', all at once the lookout calls out, 'Land ho!'--leastways he croaked it, 'cos what with weakness and little water our throats was as dry as last year's biscuit.
"'Where away?' croaks first mate, which I remember his name was Tonking.
"And there, sure enough, we seed a small island, which it might be a quarter-mile long. Now, mind you, we hadn't made a knot for three weeks. How did that island come there so sudden like? In course, it must ha' come up from the bottom o' the sea. And as we was a-lookin' at it we saw it grow, mateys--long spits o' land shootin' out this side, that side, and t'other side--and the whole concarn begins to move towards us, comin' on, hand over hand, slow, dead slow, but sure and steady. Our jaws were just a-droppin' arter our teeth when fust mate busts out in a laugh; by thunder, I remember that there laugh today! 'twas like--well, I don't know what 'twas like, if not the scrapin' of a handsaw; an' says he, 'By Neptune, 'tis a darned monstrous squid!'
"And, sure enough, that was what it was, a squid as big round as the Isle o' Wight, with arms that ud reach from Wapping Stairs to Bugsby Marshes, and just that curly shape. An' what was more, 'twas steerin' straight for us. Ay, mateys, 'twas a horrible moment!"
The seamen, even Parmiter the scoffer, were listening open mouthed, when a hoarse voice broke the spell, cutting short Bulger's story and dispersing the group.
"Here you, Burke, you, up aloft and pay the topmost with grease. I'll have no lazy lubbers aboard my ship, I tell you. I've got no use for nobody too good for his berth. No Jimmy Duffs for me! Show a leg, or, by heavens, I'll show you a rope's end and make my mark--mind that, my lad!"
Captain Barker turned to the man at his side.