"'Werry good, sir,' sez I. 'Axin' your parmission, I'll put on a life-persarver.'
"''Twon't do ye no good,' sez he. 'W'en she breaks on us she'll drive us twenty fathom down. Here it comes! Stan' by, all hands, to go under hatches.'
"Roarin' like a thunder-storm, an' loomin' over us like a iceberg turned black, the water-spout come to the barkentine. We all shut our eyes, an' held our breath, an' waited to be buried under a million tons o' water. But may I never live to see lobscouse agin ef the bloomin' thing busted at all! We felt the ship give a lurch an' a jump, an' then she started off at the rate o' thirty knots an hour.
"'Wot are it?' yelled the Cap'n.
"'The water-spout!' I yells back. 'She's picked us up!'"
The Old Sailor paused to gaze around the horizon, and the two boys gazed at one another in breathless amazement. In a moment their remarkable friend resumed his narrative.
"It weren't no sort o' pickle fur a decent old barkentine to be in, an' the Herrin' Bones knowed it, but there she were. She were a-sailin' round and round like a chicken with its head off. Her keel were in the water o' the spout, an' her masts was a-stickin' out sideways like toothpicks out o' old Bill Smorkey's mouth arter dinner. W'y, blow me fur a farmer ef I don't b'lieve she'd 'a' fell off the bloomin' thing sideways ef it hadn't bin that the wind wot the spout made a-goin' round filled the sail she had spread, an' so kep' her up.
"'Clew up the foretops'l!' hollered Pierre Crust.
"'Let it alone,' sez Cap'n Gawge W. Smoke, sez he. 'D'ye want to fall off this 'ere marine buzz-saw an' git drownded?'
"'Stop the ship; we're out o' our course,' sez Tobias Kitten, the carpenter, w'ich the same he ort to bin a tailor, 'cos w'y, he didn't know no more about a ship nor a feller wot sits cross-legged onto a table an' mends pants fur a livin'.