To our astonishment, Devlin emitted a series of canine sounds, and ended with a menacing growl. He still sat quietly on the hatch, however, without a sign or a smile on his face to indicate that he fell in with the joke. Then came a shout from the mate, calling us to halyards, clewlines, and buntlines, to shorten down for the squall.
We answered, and it was not until the squall had passed and sail made again that we noticed that Devlin still sat on the hatch, occasionally giving voice to barks and growls. We spoke to him, but received only growls.
The skipper and mates came forward, and commanded him; he answered by louder barks and deeper growls. We continued for an hour, and at last he became violent. He was put into his berth, voted crazy from some cause inherent in his nature, and ministered unto by all hands.
He grew quiet in a few days, but never regained his senses. We would talk to him, coax him to answer, and even sing the old forecastle songs to him; but all we received in answer were barks and growls, and soon we perceived that he had forgotten the use of his pan, pannikin, and spoon. We sorrowfully taught him to eat.
And we mourned also for another good fellow, from the time of that squall that followed the barbering. Andrus, the Australian, had been lost overboard. At a time when royals and topgallant sails were flapping and fluttering, the ship laid over by the squall until the lee rail was buried, and, with wind abeam, making twelve knots, Andrus had floundered down into the water in the waist to rescue the ship's cat, old Tom, that had been caught unawares and was in danger of floating overboard.
No one knew just how it happened. We only knew that the ship righted for a moment, then sagged back to a farther angle, and, when next she righted, Andrus and the cat were gone.
We let the canvas flap and carry away, while we strove to back the main yards, and the skipper threw over life-buoys and gratings. But in that furious wind we could not gain an inch on the main-brace, and by the time we realized this Andrus and the cat, life-buoys, and gratings must have been a mile astern. There was a ship on the horizon, following in our wake, but it was past all reason that Andrus, who we knew could not swim, should reach a life-buoy or grating and be picked up.
We taught and trained Devlin as we would train a dog, and he learned readily. He first learned to pull a rope with us, and soon understood the meaning of "belay." He learned to sweep and scrub decks, and, after a few trips aloft with us, learned to furl, to reef, and to "loose" a sail. He remembered every word spoken to him, and would repeat them at the right time; but we had rounded the Cape before he could converse, and then in short, jerky sentences; yet he learned to speak much more rapidly than could a child.
We called him Devlin until we understood that he could not remember it as his name; then we addressed him as "Say." Little by little he learned the ropes, the compass, and the use of marlinespikes and deck gear, and, though still stupid, was in a fair way to become an able seaman again, but for an unfortunate speech of one of our number—I think it was Swansen—who, at our forecastle supper, jokingly called him a dog.
Devlin immediately became a dog, snapping, snarling, barking, and growling, with all his tutelage gone from him.