Noyes, now on the bridge, was still chuckling [pg 189] over the picture of the scared cook when the pump-man came walking forward. He was swinging a pair of Stillson wrenches, one in each hand, as if they were Indian clubs, and singing as he came:
"Our ship she was alaborin' in the Gulf o' Mexico,
The skipper on the quarter, with eyes aloft and low.
Says he, 'My bucko boys, it's asurely goin' to blow—
Take every blessed rag from her, strip her from truck to toe,
And we'll see what she can make of it.'
And O, my eyes, it blew! And blew and blew,
And blew and blew! My soul, how it did blow!
Aboard the Flying Walrus in the Gulf o' Mexico.
"The sea—"