Glances too oppressed by awe to contain envy were cast upon me by my former companions from afar; even the man who had been in California was retreating in baffled dismay.
"This first," said Captain Judah, drawing a roll from his pocket, "though brief, has been called by many wide-idead thinkers a 'rounded globe of pathos:' men, strong men, have wept over it. It has had a yard built around it; in other words, it has been framed, and hung in many a bereaved household; let me read:
"'Farewell, my husband dear, farewell!
Adieu! farewell to you.
And you, my children dear, adieu!
Farewell! farewell to thee!
Adieu! farewell! adieu!'
"Were you looking for your handkerchief, sir?"
"Yes," said I, accidentally swallowing whole a nervine lozenge which Captain Leezur had given me.
"This," said Captain Judah, with an expressive smile, as he opened another roll, "if you will excuse the egotism, refers to an experience of my own. I was once, when master of a whaler, nearly killed in a conflict with a whale; in fact, I am accustomed to speak of it paradoxically—or shall I say hyperbolically—as 'The time when I was killed!' My account of it made a great impression upon Angie; but I will read:
"'Upon the deep and foaming brine,
My Judah's blood was spilled.
The anguished tears gush from my eyes.
O Judah, wast thou killed?
"'Had I beheld that awful scene,
I should have turned me pale,
My eyes were mercifully hence,
When Judah killed the whale.'
"It was I, so to speak, that was killed," said Captain Judah, with his peculiar smile; "the whale escaped. But for the sake of symphony, Angie has used that poetic license, familiar, as you know, to wide-idead thinkers. Or let me read you this——"
Dimmer and dimmer grew the faces of my former jovial company; but I had one friend, stout, even for this emergency.