“Ah! but I have though, or I’m the spawn of a toad-fish!” replied Boggle. “And I’ll tell you how I gripped it. You see I ar’n’t a bit afeard o’ any ’dividual as is aboveboard in what he’s arter; and I’m not the chap likely to be flabbergasted in a fair fight;—so seeing as how you were all in no little mystification about this youngster, I thought to myself, says I, when he steers his course into your whereabouts, ’spose you show a civil flag at the mast-head, and ax arter his mother and all the family; he nat’rally sees you knows manners, and ’mediately returns the compliment. From this to that, and from that to t’other, is as easy as catching sharks wi’ pickled pork, when two civil fellows lets go their jawing tackle; so you’ll tell him your ’miniscences quite confidential, and he’ll be obligated to tell you his’n; and then having overhauled his log-book pretty smartish, you can return to your mates with the ’telligence. Well, I was walking along jest afore dinner, when I seed master Zabra leaning against a mast, wi’ folded arms, eyes looking straight up to the clouds as was fleecing over the sky in all sorts o’ figurations, and his mahogany face seemin’ quite fair by the side o’ the rollin’ jet black curls as fell on each cheek down to his shoulder. I seed in a moment he was no common sort o’ cretur. If he ar’n’t a Indian prince, thinks I, I’ve no notion o’ things in general. Well, I was determined to know the rights on’t, and was just about recomembring the bit of a speech I was going to say about his mother and the rest o’ the family, when, as I came right afore him, he looks me full in the face; and though I seed nothin’ but the flash o’ his two eyes afore he flitted away to the other end o’ the ship, they seemed so ’stonishingly curious that they held me to the ground as if I was nailed to the deck, and the words I was going to say stuck in my throat like lumps o’ old Cucumber-Shin’s puddin’.”
“Kukumshin!” shouted the black cook, a very fat old negro, indignantly thrusting his woolly poll in the middle of the group. “Dare to call me Kukumshin! Me, Roly Poly Cook in ship Albatross, and free gennleman o’ colour—me Kukumshin! Pretty kettle o’ fish!—Puddin’ berry much too good for sich a fellar. Stick in him troat too! Him nebber hab no time, acause him bolt him like smoke, a fellar! Call me Kukumshin indeed!”
“I tell ye what it is, my mates,” cried Hearty, inattentive to Roly Poly’s indignation. The group were all attention.
“A fellar!” exclaimed the cook, casting one of his blackest looks upon the offender, and then waddling off to another part of the ship.
“In my time I’ve been many voyages to India and thereabouts,” said the old man; “and I knows it’s the notion o’ them people, that arter a fellow’s dead he comes to life again in another sort of a body. Now if this here rigmarole’s true, which every body there says is as sartain as a stone ’ill sink, seeing that this youngster is more ’cute in his notions than is usual at his time o’ day, and appears a most ’straordinary sort o’ a human, it’s much more nat’ral to ’spose he’s been metamorphorosed from some of those Old Indian flos’phers who ’s up to ev’ry thing in natur’, than that he should be a mere hobbledehoy, as can’t have any more gumption than what ’ll serve him to carry a letter or go on a message. But hush!” exclaimed the speaker as a beautiful symphony full of passionate sentiment was borne upon the air. A soft melodious voice soon mingled with the instrument, and these words were sung with all the expression superior skill could bestow upon them:—
“The wave rolls on from shore to shore,
As from the first those billows roll’d;
All study its mysterious lore,
But none have yet its secrets told!
So in the heart a flood flows on
As free and boundless in its will;
As long, the learnèd there have gone—
Its secrets are unfathom’d still!
“Unfathomed still, fond heart! remain,—
Veil thy rich flood’s most precious prize!
Thy pearlèd worth—thy golden gain—
Hide—hide from all too-curious eyes!
For see! th’ adventurous diver comes,
Down in thy deeps he makes his stay;
Through ev’ry hidden cave he roams—
Then bears thy treasured stores away.
“But why thy sterling splendours hide?—
Why veil the worth thou dost possess?—
Pour out thy bright exhaustless tide!
Lay bare thy wealth!—and thee ’t will bless.
The riches that are hoarded up,
In worthless hands at last must shrink;—
And he who cares to fill the cup,
Should fill for one who longs to drink!”
“There! that is music,” observed Climberkin in a whisper; “and it makes my heart leap like a dolphin just taken out o’ his element.”
“All hands to take in sail!” shouted a stentorian voice from the quarter-deck, and in an instant the group were engaged in active duty.