Git 'im
to foller us as far as he will, and then hook him. We might git him in
alive and show him at a sovereign a head. Anyway, we can take in his
carcase if we manage it properly.'
"'By Jove! if we only could,' ses the skipper, getting excited too.
"'We can try,' ses the mate. 'Why, we could have noosed it this mornin'
if we had liked; and if it breaks the lines we must blow its head to
pieces with the gun.'
"It seemed a most eggstraordinary thing to try and catch it that way;
but the beast was so tame, and stuck so close to us, that it wasn't
quite so ridikilous as it seemed at fust.
"Arter a couple o' days nobody minded the animal a bit, for it was about
the most nervous thing of its size you ever saw. It hadn't got the soul
of a mouse; and one day when the second mate, just for a lark, took the
line of the foghorn in his hand and tooted it a bit, it flung up its
'ead in a scared sort o' way, and, after backing a bit, turned clean
round and bolted.
"I thought the skipper 'ud have gone mad. He chucked over loaves o'
bread, bits o' beef and pork, an' scores o' biskits, and by-and-bye,
when the brute plucked up heart an' came arter us again, he fairly
beamed with joy. Then he gave orders that nobody was to touch the horn
for any reason whatever, not even if there was a fog, or chance of
collision, or anything of the kind; an' he also gave orders that the
bells wasn't to be struck, but that the bosen was just to shove 'is 'ead
in the fo'c's'le and call 'em out instead.
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