“‘No,’ says Kite, who was allers plain-spoken, ‘he ain’t, for a fact; and to tell ye the truth, Mr. Coombs, I can’t think of anything he favors so much as he does a dose of jalap.’
“‘Jalap,’ says my father, meditating and turning of the word over in his mouth—‘jalap. It’s bitter but wholesome, and as he’s the dose I’ve got to take whether or no, I’ll call him Jalap, and done with it.’
“He kep’ his word, and that’s how I come to be sot agin mussels.”
“I declare! I don’t blame you, Mr. Coombs,” said Phil, laughing at this quaint bit of family history; “and if I had been in your place I would have had it changed as soon as I grew up.”
“No,” said the mate, decidedly, “that wouldn’t have done, ’cause, you see, it were all owing to the name, for which Kite naturally felt responserble, that he come to be so friendly with me. Sorter trying to make up for what he’d did, ye understand; and his friendship, he being a powerful smart man, made me what I be.”
Phil wanted to laugh again at the evident pride with which the mate of the Seamew regarded his station in life, but realizing that it would be very rude, hastily changed the subject by inquiring: “By-the-way, Mr. Coombs, how soon do you think we shall be obliged to leave this island? If it wasn’t for my poor father’s anxiety I should like to stay here a month. You see, after what Serge has told me, I find there are ever so many things here that I want to see. In fact, I feel as if I must see a sea-otter. That is,” he added, mischievously, “it seems as if a sea-otter was the one thing I otter see.”
“Hey?” ejaculated the mate, taking his pipe from his mouth and gazing at Phil as though he feared something had gone wrong with the lad. Then, as a twinkle in the other’s eye betrayed him, he exclaimed: “Get along, ye young villain! We’ll stay here long enough to let you see all you want of this island, and more too, ef I’m not mightily mistaken in the weather. And now ye’d best follow your chum’s example and turn in, for ef ye ain’t sleepy, ye ought to be arter the day we’ve had and the to-morrows that is a-coming.”
So the three castaways on that desolate northern island slept on their mossy couch as soundly and peacefully as though in their bunks on board the Seamew or in the beds of their distant homes. All night long the wind howled about the stout walls of their shelter, the rain beat on the canvas roof above them, and a mighty roar from the sea filled the air; but none of these things disturbed them, and not until long after daylight did one of them awake.
For a solid week did the tempest rage with unabated fury, and long before the end of that time they were wearied almost beyond endurance with their enforced inaction and monotonous diet. To Phil in particular did the salmon and crabs, that he had thought so good on that first night, grow so distasteful that it became almost impossible for him to swallow the hated food.